INSTITUTE  Cr  INDUSTRIAL 
RELATION:   '"BRARY 

UNIVERSITY  r;-  ^.\'.;fornia 

BERKELEY,  CA     94720 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
BERKELEY 

Institute  of 
Industrial  Relations  Library 


Gift  of 


MRS.    MAX  GUBER 


/J 


ANALYSIS 

OF  THE 

INTERCHURCH  WORLD  MOVEMENT 
REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

BY 

MARSHALL  OLDS 

FOREWORD 
BY 

JEREMIAH  W.  JENKS,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 

Research  Professor  of  Government  and  Public  Administration, 
New  York  University 

EDITED  AS  TO  THE  LAW  INVOLVED  IN  LABOR  CONTROVERSIES  BY 

MURRAY  T.  QUIGG,  B.A.,  LL.B. 

Editor  "  Law  and  Labor  " 

EDITED  AS  TO  DETAILED  ACCURACY  OF  CITATIONS,  QUOTATIONS, 
AND  STATISTICS  BY 

HASKINS  AND  SELLS 

Certified  Public  Accountants 


PART  TWO 

HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 
REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

WITH  THE  ASSISTANCE  OF 

NUMEROUS  OFFICIALS  AND  ASSOCIATES 

OF  THE 

INTERCHURCH  WORLD  MOVEMENT 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

^be   Itniclterbocfiec    prees 

1922 


^       t 


INSTITUTE  OF 

INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS 

UBRARY 

Copyright,  1922 

by 

Marshall  Olds 


AS^ 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Crix ; 


ANALYSIS 

OF   THE 

INTERCHURCH  WORLD  MOVEMENT 
REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 


FOREWORD 

By  Jeremiah  W.  Jenks,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Research  Professor  of  Government  and  Public  Administration, 
New  York  University 

No  question  at  the  present  day  is  of  greater  interest  to 
the  public  than  that  of  the  relations  between  employers  and 
their  working  men.  Not  only  are  these  two  parties  inter- 
ested but  the  public  in  many  cases  loses  even  more  in  both 
financial  interests  and  lack  of  comfort  and  public  facilities 
than  do  either  of  the  parties  immediately  concerned  in  the 
case  of  a  great  strike,  which  suspends  an  important  business 
like  railroading,  coal  mining,  manufacture  of  steel,  the  fur- 
nishing of  milk  to  a  great  city,  and  other  similar  industries. 
In  consequence  the  story  of  a  great  strike,  with  its  causes 
and  allotment  of  fault  and  the  results  both  to  the  parties 
directly  interested  and  to  the  public,  is  of  general  concern. 
And  such  a  story,  if  it  is  to  do  good  rather  than  harm,  must 
be  told  with  absolute  impartiality  and  complete  regard  for 
the  exact  truth.  When  the  Interchurch  World  Movement 
was  organized,  most  people  interested  in  social  and  moral 
progress  hoped  earnestly  for  its  success.  It  is  generally 
recognized  that  no  other  organization  in  the  civilized  world 
is  of  so  great  importance  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  society 
as  a  whole  as  the  Christian  Church,  including  all  of  the 
various  denominations.  It  was  in  consequence  the  earnest 
desire  of  public-spirited  men  that  the  work  be  conducted 


vi  FOREWORD 

with  "wisdom  and  thoroughness,  so  that  its  expressions  of 
opinion  on  whatever  subject  would  be  received  at  full  value, 
and  influence  social  movements  accordingly. 

Soon  after  its  organization  an  industrial  section  was- 
established,  with  the  thought  that  it  would  take  charge  of 
investigations  dealing  with  the  various  phases  of  industry 
from  the  moral  and  religious  points  of  view.  I  was  invited 
to  attend  as  a  delegate  of  one  of  the  important  social  move- 
ments, an  early  conference  of  this  industrial  section.  This 
meeting  was  held  while  the  steel  strike  of  191 9  was  under 
way  and  shortly  after  Judge  Gary  had  declined  to  meet 
the  representatives  of  the  trade  union  in  order  to  discuss 
with  them  the  possible  terms  of  settlement,  he  feeling  it 
wiser  to  deal  directly  with  his  own  men  and  with  represen- 
tatives in  the  employ  of  the  steel  corporation  whom  they 
might  select.  This  act  of  his  was  condemned  openly  in  this 
meeting.  One  of  the  members  proposed,  apparently  in 
some  excitement,  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  in- 
vestigate and  report  upon  the  steel  strike.  Evidently  the 
mover  of  the  resolution  expected  a  prompt  condemnatory 
report. 

It  has  been  my  fortune  to  take  an  active  part  in  a  number 
of  important  investigations  on  industrial  subjects.  No  one 
who  has  not  been  intimately  connected  with  the  manage- 
ment of  business  or  who  has  not  attempted  such  an  investi- 
gation can  understand  its  difficulties  and  the  length  of  time 
required  to  secure  impartial  information  and  present  it 
accurately.  From  the  very  nature  of  their  business,  minis- 
ters of  the  Christian  religion  have  not  the  training  or  the 
experience  to  make  such  an  investigation,  or  even  to  plan 
and  guide  such  an  investigation.  Of  course  there  are  within 
the  church  organization  trained  business  men  and  econo- 
mists who  would  be  especially  well  equipped  for  such  work. 
Generally  speaking,  experience  shows  that  when  ministers 
attempt  to  discuss  in  detail  either  practical  or  business 
questions  of  the  day,  which  are  of  a  partisan  nature,  they 
will  inevitably  offend  a  considerable  portion  of  their  con- 


FOREWORD  vii 

gregations,  because  in  controverted  questions  there  are 
usually  two  sides  and  an  average  congregation  will  be 
divided  in  opinion.  The  minister,  therefore,  will  please  one 
section  and  offend  the  other.  If,  in  the  discussion  of  a 
partisan  question,  he  confines  himself  to  dwelling  upon  the 
importance  of  the  truthful  and  wise  solution  of  the  question 
and  to  arousing  the  consciousness  of  his  hearers  themselves 
to  make  an  impartial  study  of  the  question  and  then  to  act 
impartially  with  the  welfare  of  the  public  in  mind,  he  will 
usually  have  accomplished  his  duty  far  more  effectively  than 
if  he  attempts  to  instruct  his  congregation  in  the  merits  of 
the  question  itself. 

Very  many  of  us  felt,  therefore,  that  for  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  to  attempt  to  intervene  in  this  great 
strike  was  probably  ill  advised.  If,  however,  it  seemed 
best  to  the  managers  of  the  movement  to  undertake  such 
an  investigation,  it  was  of  prime  importance  both  to  the 
movement  itself  and  to  the  public  at  large  that  the  investi- 
gation be  made  by  the  best  industrial  experts,  who  would 
follow  strictly  scientific  principles  and  debar  absolutely  all 
partisan  spirit.  If  that  could  be  done  the  report  might  be 
very  helpful.  If  the  report  were  made  in  any  other  spirit  it 
was  certain  to  be  harmful  rather  than  beneficial  to  the  public 
and  would  certainly  prove  very  damaging  to  the  Inter- 
church World  Movement  itself. 

The  investigation  was  made  and  the  committee  in  whose 
charge  the  investigation  had  been  placed  made  its  report. 
Shortly  thereafter  adverse  criticisms  were  made,  both  by 
unpartisan  reviewers  and  by  prominent  church  people,  on 
the  ground  that  the  report  was  partisan  and  inaccurate.  As 
far  as  I  am  aware,  no  detailed  analysis  of  the  report  has  yet 
been  published. 

Sometime  ago  Mr.  Olds,  the  author  of  this  book,  came  to 
me  explaining  that  he  was  making  a  detailed  analysis  of  the 
Interchurch  report  on  the  steel  strike;  that  he  was  endeavor- 
ing to  be  absolutely  impartial ;  that  he  was  using  the  great- 
est care  in  verifying  his  statistics  and  his  statements ;  that  he 


viii  FOREWORD 

was  attempting  so  to  present  his  analysis  that  it  would  be 
easy  for  the  reader  to  segregate  questions  of  fact  from  those 
of  opinion,  and  in  this  way  get  a  really  accurate  view  of  this 
report,  its  excellencies  and  its  defects.  He  also  explained 
to  me  that  he  had  the  cooperation  in  his  work  of  some  men 
who  had  been  active  in  the  preparation  of  the  Interchurch 
report ;  that  he  was  looking  up  the  training  and  status  of  all 
those  who  had  made  the  investigations  and  prepared  the 
report,  and  that  he  hoped  his  work  would  prove  of  service  to 
the  public.  I  had  known  Mr.  Olds  before  and  believed  him 
to  be  sincere  in  attempting  to  do  an  impartial  piece  of  work. 

I  have  since  read  Mr.  Olds'  manuscript  with  care.  I  have 
not  had  the  time  and  have  made  no  attempt  to  verify  his 
figures,  his  citation  of  authorities,  or  his  quotations.  In- 
asmuch, however,  as  this  could  readily  be  done  by  any  party 
interested,  as  Mr.  Olds  has  a  reputation  as  a  student  of 
these  questions  to  sustain,  and  as  he  has,  I  understand, 
taken  the  wise  precaution  of  having  all  such  matter  carefully 
verified  by  competent  outside  assistance,  I  have  no  question 
that  this  part  of  his  work  has  been  carefully  done. 

Considering  the  very  great  significance  of  both  the  Inter- 
church Movement  and  of  the  steel  strike,  his  study  is  to 
my  mind,  of  decided  importance.  It  should  be  read  by 
all  who  wish  to  make  any  use  of  the  Interchurch  report,  to 
quote  it  or  to  base  any  judgment  upon  it.  Especially  should 
it  be  read  and  carefully  studied  by  the  leaders  in  the  Inter- 
church Movement  who  have  loaned  their  names  to  the 
report,  or  who  were  responsible  for  the  investigation.  No 
honest  man  can  base  arguments  or  conclusions  upon  a 
document  whose  accuracy  he  questions,  without  verifymg 
by  independent  study  the  accuracy  of  the  document.  Mr. 
Olds'  study  of  the  report,  impartial  as  it  is  in  spirit  and 
generous  as  it  is  in  its  criticism  of.  the  motives  of  those  who 
have  been  responsible  for  making  it,  is  nevertheless  such 
that  it  is  bound  to  raise  serious  question  in  the  mind  of  any 
student  of  social  problems  who  is  interested  in  the  report. 
It  is  to  be  hoped,  therefore,  that  this  study  will  have  a  wide 


FOREWORD  ix 

circulation  among  those  who  are  interested  in  the  relation 
of  the  Church  to  industrial  questions,  especially  those  who 
believe  that  the  Church  should  take  an  active  part  in  the 
direct  discussion  and  solution  of  industrial  problems  and 
particularly  those  directly  connected  with  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement. 


Statement  by 

HASKINS  &  SELLS 
Certified  Public  Accountants 

Pursuant  to  engagement,  we  have  reviewed  the  manu- 
script of  your  book  A  nalysis  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the 
Steel  Strike  for  the  purpose  of  verifying,  by  comparison  with 
their  stated  sources,  the  citations,  quotations,  statistics, 
and  figures  contained  therein ;  and 

We  Hereby  Certify: 

That  all  citations  are  accurate; 

That  all  quotations,  including  excerpts  in  which  the 
sequence  of  original  passages  has  for  clearness  or  brevity 
been  varied,  are  accurate  as  to  text  and,  in  our  opinion, 
fairly  represent  the  meaning  of  their  original  context ; 

That  all  statistics  and  figures  quoted  have  been  verified 
by  comparison  with  documents  from  which  quoted  and 
those  subject  to  mathematical  proof  have  been  so  proved; 
and 

That  all  statistics  are  presented  and  used  in  accordance 
with  generally  accepted  statistical  practices. 

(Signed)  Haskins  &  Sells. 


X  FOREWORD 

Statement  of 

REV.  WILLIAM   HIRAM   FOULKES,   D.D> 
Chairman,  Executive  Committee  Interchurch  World  Movement 

which  finally  approved  for  publication  the  Report  on  the 
Steel  Strike. ' 

"I  fear  from  what  I  have  heard,  after  the  investigation 
had  been  made,  that  some  of  the  actual  investigators  were 
not  as  unprejudiced  as  they  should  have  been,  and  that, 
personally  representing  one  side  of  the  controversy,  their 
testimony  was  therefore,  liable  to  be  discounted." 


Statement  of 

MR.   STANLEY  WENT 

Member  Publicity  Department,  Interchurch  World  Movement, 

and  original  editor  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel 

Strike 

Upon  the  completion  of  my  editing  of  the  original  draft 
of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike,  I  accom- 
panied my  editorial  notes  with  a  memorandum  which  was  in 
part  as  follows : — 

June  17,  1920. 
From:  STA^fLEY  Went, 
To:       Mr.  Dennett 
Re:       Steel  Report. 

In  accordance  with  your  wishes,  I  have  edited  the  accompanying 
steel  report  as  lightly  as  seemed  compatible  with  the  end  in  view.  That 
end,  as  I  understand  it,  was  to  present  the  report  in  a  form  which  should 
give  the  least  possible  impression  of  bias  on  the  part  of  the  investigating 
committee. 


'  Originally  Dr.  John  R.  Mott  was  Chairman,  and  Dr.  Foulkes  Vice- 
Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee.  Dr.  Mott,  however,  left  for 
Europe  before  May  loth,  the  date  on  which  the  Report  on  the  Steel 
Strike  was  submitted  to  the  Executive  Committee. 


FOREWORD  xi 

I  would  a  great  deal  rather  the  Report  was  published  in  its  original 
than  its  present  form  for  the  bias  of  the  original  seems  to  me  so  patent 
that  it  would  make  it  a  comparatively  easy  matter  to  discredit  the  entire 
report.  My  feeling,  after  editing  the  report,  is  that  even  now  I  have 
used  the  pencil  too  lightly;  but  I  have  rather  leaned  over  backwards  in  a 
desire  to  present  the  case  of  the  Commission  as  much  as  possible  in  the 
way  the  original  writer  thought  that  it  should  be  presented. 

The  activities  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  came 
to  an  end  very  soon  after  I  had  completed  that  first  editing 
and  my  connection  with  the  Movement  ceased.  Subse- 
quent editing  was  done  by  other  hands.  My  opinion 
regarding  the  merits  of  the  Steel  Report  was  well  known  at 
the  time  to  some  of  my  associates  in  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement,  and  under  ordinary  circumstances,  I  should  not 
have  expressed  it  further.  Since,  however,  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  has  ceased  to  exist,  no  possible  obligation  to 
keep  silent  remains,  especially  since  the  prestige  of  the  Move- 
ment itself  is  being  used,  illegitimately  I  believe,  in  the  dis- 
semination as  propaganda  of  this  unfortunate  Steel  Report. 

On  that  account  I  welcome  Mr.  Olds'  careful  analysis  of 
this  Report  and  of  the  circumstances  surrounding  its  origin 
and  publication,  and  have  been  happy  to  give  him  what 
assistance  I  was  able  to  afford.  Mr.  Olds*  analysis  presents, 
in  detail,  facts  that  speak  for  themselves.  I  can  only  add 
that  in  my  opinion  his  treatment  throughout  is  moderate 
and  that  I  know  him  to  share  my  own  sympathy  with  the 
ideals  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement. 


Statement  by 

THE   CONTINENT 

Leading    Publication    of    the   Presbyterian    Denomination. 

The  Steel  Strike  Report  Editorial,  Nov  4,  1920 

"The  most  unfortunate  fact  about  the  Report  is  that  on 
its  face  it  is  not  the  work  of  the  Commission  which  the  Inter- 
church appointed  under  Bishop  McConnell.  The  title 
page  ^ays  the  Commission  had  '  the  technical  assistance  of 


xii  FOREWORD 

the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  of  New  York'  and  the 
style  and  point  of  view  characterizing  the  document  through- 
out suggest  strongly  that  this  'technical  assistance'  extended 
to  the  writing  of  the  entire  text.  Consequently  it  does  not 
impress  the  reader  as  being  in  any  typical  sense  a  Church 
Report,  still  less  an  Interchurch  Report.  .  .  .  On  the 
contrary  it  has  quite  obviously  been  prepared  from  the 
standpoint  of  some  mind  convinced  beforehand  that  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  is  an  insincere,  oppressive 
and  iniquitous  organization  .  .  .  the  Interchurch  protested 
impartiality  and  those  who  saw  the  inquiry  begin  certainly 
expected  something  like  a  judicial  rendering  of  opinion — not 
a  brief  for  the  prosecution." 

The  Second  Steel  Report  Editorial,  Oct.  ij,  ig2i 

"The  reports  rest  for  their  real  meaning  wholly  upon  the 
names  of  their  individual  authors;  their  authority  is  the 
authority  of  their  respective  writers.  In  no  sense  can 
they  be  looked  upon  as  Church  deliverances.  The  only 
way  in  which  such  matters  could  be  dealt  with  by  the 
Church  even  representatively  would  be  thru  the  official 
appointment  of  eminent  Church  leaders  who  could  and 
would  take  the  time  to  carry  forward  all  needful  investi- 
gation by  their  personal  examination.  But  the  Com- 
mission appointed  to  look  into  the  Steel  Strike  never  even 
considered  that  method  of  procedure ;  it  immediately  hired 
professional  'researchers'  none  of  whom  were  persons  of 
reputation  in  the  religious  world  and  at  least  some  of 
whom  were  totally  out  of  touch  with  the  Church  ...  to 
call  it  a  Church  investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike  was  and 
is  preposterous." 


Statement  by 

The   New    York    Legislative    Investigation    on   Radicalism 

{page  1 1 37) 

"The  most  recent  proof  of  the  invasion  of  the  Churches 

by  subversive  influences  is  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  by 


FOREWORD  xiii 

a  committee  appointed  by  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 
ment. It  is  not  generally  known  that  the  direction  of  this 
inquiry  was  not  in  the  hands  of  unbiased  investigators.  The 
principal  'experts'  were  David  J.  Saposs  and  George  Soule 
(Heber  Blankenhorn  joined  the  investigation  later)  whose 
radical  view-poinls  may  be  gathered  from  their  association 
with  Mr.  Evans  Clark  acting  under  the  direction  of  Ludwig 
C.  A.  K.  Martens,  head  of  the  Soviet  Bureau  in  the  United 
States,  their  connection  also  with  the  Rand  School  of  Social 
Science  and  certain  revolutionary  labor  organization." 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION  AND   METHOD  OF 
PREPARATION 

The  facts  and  information  here  contained  are  chiefly  from 
three  sources : 

First,  from  officers  or  members  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  or  those  directly  or  officially  associated  with  that 
Movement.  The  individual  or  individuals  responsible  for 
each  such  fact  or  statement  is  in  each  case  specifically 
named:     This  refers  particularly  to  Part  Two; — 

Second,  from  the  Interchurch  World  Movement's  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike  and  its  other  reports,  resolutions  and 
findings,  all  of  which  are  published  and  can  be  specifically 
referred  to  in  connection  with  each  such  fact  or  statement 
here  made; — 

Third,  from  public  records  and  public  statements,  all  of 
which  are  printed  and  generally  available.  Such  authority 
is  in  each  case  referred  to  directly  and  specifically. 

Except  for  a  conversation  with  one  man  who  was  promi- 
nently and  officially  connected  with  the  Interchurch  Investi- 
gation and  who  is  also  active  in  the  "  Labor  Movement "  no 
one  connected  with  either  the  steel  companies  or  the  Labor 
Movement  was  consulted  or  informed  as  to  the  proposed 
publication  of  the  present  analysis  until  after  this  analysis 
had  been  completed  in  substantially  its  present  form. 


xiv  FOREWORD 

The  author's  reasons  for  believing  that  a  detailed  analysis 
of  the  Interchurch  Report  should  be  published  and  thus 
made  a  matter  of  public  record  will  doubtless  become 
obvious  from  a  reading  of  the  present  volume  and  perhaps 
can,  in  the  particular  circumstances,  be  more  fittingly 
summarized  in  an  "Afterword"  than  stated  in  a  Foreword. 

Preliminary  to  the  formulation  of  any  definite  plan  as  to 
how  the  facts  shown  in  the  present  analysis  should  be 
pubhshed,  or  even  if  they  should  be  published,  such  of  them 
as  were  then  available  were  gone  over  in  the  Spring  of  1921, 
with  a  number  of  the  author's  personal  friends  who  had  been 
associated  with  the  Interchurch  Movement.  As  Dr. 
William  Hiram  Foulkes  had  been  Chairman  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  during 
the  time  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  was  being  passed  on 
for  publication,  and  as  that  Committee  is  stated  in  the 
Report  as  the  final  authority  to  pass  on  and  approve  the 
Report  for  publication,  it  was  suggested  that  the  facts 
under  discussion  and  the  idea  of  making  them  public  should 
be  first  taken  up  with  Dr.  Foulkes. 

Shortly  thereafter  these  facts  were  presented  to  Dr. 
Foulkes  during  a  long  conversation  in  which  the  author 
stated  that  while  he  was  convinced  that  these  facts  should 
be  presented  to  the  public,  he  had  no  fixed  plan  as  to  the 
method  by  which  they  should  be  presented.  The  author 
suggested,  however,  that  if.  as  he  was  convinced,  the  Inter- 
church Report  had  published  as  facts  many  things  that  were 
contrary  to  the  facts  and  was  otherwise  highly  inaccurate, 
the  Interchurch  World  Movement  which  had  underwritten 
the  Report,  and  particularly  the  individual  men  who  had 
signed  the  Report,  either  personally  or  as  members  of  com- 
mittees, would  be  the  most  fitting  medium  through  which 
any  corrections  should  come.  He  stated  that  he  was 
entirely  wilHng  to  cooperate  with  the  Interchurch  Move- 
ment or  individual  members  on  any  basis  they  might 
suggest,  provided  only  that  such  errors  in  the  Interchurch 
Report  as  could  be  demonstrated  and  which  had  received 


FOREWORD  XY 

the  widest  publicity  should  be  publicly  admitted  and 
corrected.  Dr.  Foulkes  stated  that  many  of  the  facts  in 
regard  to  the  Interchurch  Report  which  the  author  pointed 
out,  had  already  been  called  to  his  attention.  He  stated 
that  under  the  circumstances,  he  personally  believed  that  a 
careful  and  impartial  analysis  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
should  be  made.  He  of  course  could  not,  and  did  not, 
commit  himself  in  advance  in  regard  to  any  particular 
analysis  which  might  be  made.  He  also  suggested  a  plan 
of  operation  looking  towards  such  an  analysis  which  in- 
cluded the  possible  cooperation  of  certain  other  gentlemen 
who  had  been  prominently  connected  with  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement. 

The  point  of  view  on  the  subject  of  the  various  individuals 
thus  named  by  Dr.  Foulkes — as  far  as  they  were  seen,  and 
with  the  exception  of  Dr.  Jenks — is  stated  in  Part  II  of 
the  present  Analysis.  In  general  that  point  of  view  was 
that  they  personally  were  in  no  way  responsible  for  the 
Interchurch  Report  and  they  considered  it  a  "dead  issue." 
It  was  emphasized  in  regard  to  the  first  point  that  the  public 
had  widely  accepted  the  Interchurch  Report  on  its  face 
value  largely  on  the  reputation  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  and  that  that  reputation  had  rested  largely  on 
the  prominence  of  themselves  and  other  individuals  whose 
names  were  widely  advertised  as  the  leaders  of  the  Move- 
ment. It  was  emphasized  in  regard  to  the  second  point 
that  a  second  Interchurch  Report  was  at  that  time  being 
widely  advertised  as  about  to  appear.  Their  attitude  how- 
ever remained  unchanged. 

Dr.  Jeremiah  W.  Jenks  had  been  an  invited  delegate  to 
represent  the  public  point  of  view,  in  the  Hotel  Penn- 
sylvania conference  at  which  the  movement  to  investigate 
the  steel  strike  was  inaugurated.  Doubtless  because  of  his 
wide  reputation  as  an  economic  authority  he  had  also  been 
invited  to  serve  as  an  ex-officio  member  in  an  advisory 
capacity  to  several  of  the  various  committees  which  were 
appointed  to  consider  economic  questions  and  was  other- 


xvi  FOREWORD 

wise  closely  associated  with  the  Movement.  His  attitude 
toward  the  Interchurch  Steel  Strike  investigation  and  the 
Interchurch  Report  has  been  stated  in  his  foreword  to  the 
present  analysis.  The  author  saw  and  talked  with  Dr. 
Jenks  at  the  beginning  of  April  and  thereafter  during  the 
course  of  the  preparation  of  the  present  analysis  and  has 
followed  such  suggestions  as  Dr.  Jenks  has  made  in  the 
presentation  of  the  present  analysis. 

Part  I  of  the  present  analysis  dealing  with  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  was  completed  in  preliminary  form  by  the 
middle  of  August.  Part  II,  dealing  with  the  history  and 
personnel  of  the  Interchurch  investigation,  was  not  com- 
pleted until  later.  Dr.  Foulkes  was  at  this  time  on  an 
extended  trip  in  the  West.  In  his  absence  the  author  had 
had  several  conversations  with  Dr.  A.  E.  Cory,  then  acting 
head  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement.  This  draft  of 
Part  I  was  at  once  turned  over  to  Dr.  Cory  to  whom  the 
statement  was  made  that  the  author  was  willing  to  put  the 
material  in  the  hands  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement 
without  reserve  to  go  over  and  analyze  as  they  saw  fit  and 
that  he  would  cooperate  with  them  in  any  use  they  desired 
to  make  of  the  material  so  long  as  that  use  included  either 
the  specific  disproving  of  the  facts  brought  out  in  the  present 
analysis,  or  if  they  could  not  be  disproved  specifically,  the 
presentation  of  these  facts  to  the  public.  It  was  further 
emphasized  that  irrespective  of  such  cooperation,  the  author 
would  welcome  any  specific  criticism  and  would  correct 
any  errors  in  the  analysis  which  could  be  pointed  out. 

Two  days  later  (August  i8th)  the  author  received  a  letter 
from  Mr.  John  A.  Fitch,  who  is  Hsted  by  the  New  York 
Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism  as  having  assisted 
in  several  capacities  the  I.  W.  W.  and  as  being  associated 
with  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research,  which  organization 
is  specifically  stated  to  have  been  the  technical  adviser  in 
the  preparation  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  calling  attention 
to  an  error  in  a  single  obscure  sentence  in  the  middle  of 
the  manuscript.     As  this  indicated  that  the  Interchurch 


FOREWORD  xvii 

Movement's  judgment  of  the  present  analysis  was  being 
formulated  by  the  very  group  of  "technical  advisers'' 
whose  technical  advice  in  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  is 
the  chief  subject  of  criticism  of  the  present  analysis,  the 
author  immediately  called  Dr.  Cory  on  the  telephone  and 
pointed  this  out.  He  urged  that  the  question  of  whether 
or  not  the  Interchurch  Report  is  so  flagrantly  inaccurate 
and  more  than  merely  inaccurate  as  the  present  Analysis 
specifically  shows,  should  be  regarded  as  of  sufficient  import- 
ance to  be  most  carefully  considered.  He  mentioned 
several  Columbia  University  professors  of  recognized  econo- 
mic standing  who  were  immediately  available '  and  urged 
that  the  opinion  of  some  such  recognized  authority  as  these 
should  be  obtained  by  Dr.  Cory  and  at  least  also  considered 
in  formulating  the  Interchurch  Movement's  opinion  on  the 
question.  The  same  day  however,  Dr.  Cory  wrote  the 
author  stating  that  the  members  of  the  Commission  who 
published  the  Steel  Strike  Report  or  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee could  avail  themselves  of  the  right  to  answer  any 
inaccuracies  in  the  present  analysis  after  it  was  published 
if  they  so  desired. 

This  first  draft  was  then  placed  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Jere- 
miah W.  Jenks  and  shortly  thereafter,  a  first  draft  of  Part 
II  was  completed  and  placed  in  his  hands. 

Mr.  Stanley  Went  as  a  member  of  the  Publicity  Depart- 
ment of  the  Interchurch  Movement  had  written  the  official 
Hand  Book  of  the  Movement,  he  had  written  three  of  their 
official  surveys  and  had  been  the  original  editor  of  the  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike  and  was  otherwise  intimately  informed  as 
to  various  subjects  under  discussion  in  the  present  analysis. 
A  carbon  copy  of  both  parts  was  therefore  also  placed  in 
the  hands  of  Mr.  Went  for  his  suggestion  or  correction. 

The  author  had  been  frequently  informed  that  Mr.  Harold 
C.  Reynolds,  who  had  been  Superintendent  of  the  Religious 
Press  Division,  and  Mr.  James  E.  Craig,  who  had  been 
Superintendent  of  the  Bulletin  Division  and  Superintendent 
of  the  Reporting  Division  of  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 


xviii  FOREWORD 

ment,  were,  because  of  the  particular  nature  of  their  offices 
and  otherwise,  intimately  informed  in  regard  to  the  facts  in 
connection  with  the  investigation  of  the  Steel  strike.  These 
gentlemen  had  both  been  absent  from  the  city  but  had 
returned  in  the  Fall.  The  preliminary  drafts  of  both  Part 
I  and  Part  II  were  turned  over  to  these  gentlemen  who, 
after  going  over  the  manuscript  carefully  together,  agreed 
to,  and  did,  make  voluminous  editorial*notes  and  corrections. 

In  the  intervening  weeks,  Dr.  Jenks  had  gone  over  the 
whole  manuscript  with  care,  making  numerous  suggestions. 
He  particularly  suggested  that  special  effort  should  be 
made  to  obtain  information  as  to  the  nature  of  the  "affida- 
vits of  500  steel  workers"  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
itself  states  constituted  "the  rockbottom"  of  the  findings. 
At  this  time  also  it  was  announced  that  the  second  volume 
of  the  Interchurch  Report,  consisting  of  evidence  on  which 
the  first  volume  was  based  was  about  to  appear,  and  it  was 
decided  to  postpone  further  editing  till  this  material  should 
be  available. 

In  the  meantime  also  Dr.  Foulkes  had  returned  and  the 
first  draft  of  the  entire  present  analysis,  including  a  state- 
ment of  many  of  Dr.  Jenks'  editorial  suggestions,  was  placed 
in  his  hands.  Some  weeks  later  Dr.  Foulkes  stated  in  a  letter 
dated  November  ist,  that  the  present  analysis  "deals  with 
so  many  alleged  facts  and  conclusions  which  are  out  of  the 
range  of  my  observation  and  knowledge  that  it  does  not 
seem  wise  for  me  to  attempt  to  pass  any  detailed  judgement 
on  the  statements  you  have  made."  He  also  added  at  the 
same  time —  rephrasing  for  publication  the  point  of  view  he 
had  expressed  in  a  previous  discussion — his  own  personal 
point  of  view  as  to  the  merits  of  the  Interchurch  Report, 
which  statement  appears  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
analysis. 

The  appearance  in  the  late  Fall  of  the  second  volume  of 
the  Interchurch  Report,  containing  a  number  of  the  sub- 
reports  which  in  turn  contained  much  more  of  the  evidence 
on  which  the  Report  itself  was  based,  and  the  fact  that  this 


FOREWORD  xix 

volume  also  contained  a  small  number  of  the  "rockbottom 
affidavits,"  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  states  it  is 
chiefly  based,  made  it  then  possible  to  give  more  detailed 
consideration  to  certain  sections  and  particularly  to  certain 
arguments  and  conclusions  of  the  Interchurch  Report. 
Accordingly  the  section  of  the  present  analysis,  dealing  with 
the  Interchurch  Report's  allegations  as  to  Social  Conse- 
quences"— particularly  its  allegations  of  the  "denial  of 
the  right  of  free  speech,"  of  "police  brutality."  and  of  dis- 
crimination against  the  strikers  on  the  part  of  the  courts—^ 
were  considerably  enlarged. 

As  these  matters  involve  many  questions  of  law  and  facts 
in  regard  to  labor  controvesies,  the  author  secured  the  assist- 
ance of  Mr.  Murray  T.  Quigg,  editor  of  "Law  and  Labor" 
to  collaborate  with  him  on  certain  parts  of  these  sections 
and  to  edit  these  entire  sections. 

An  effort  had  been  made  in  September  to  bring  the 
analysis  to  the  attention  of  Judge  Gary  for  the  expressed 
purpose  of  obtaining  any  criticism  or  suggestions  which  he 
or  other  representatives  of  the  steel  industry  might  have 
to  offer.  His  office  stated  however  that  the  immediate 
demands  on  his  time  were  then  such  that  he  could  not  hope 
to  give  attention  to  new  or  outside  matters  for  at  least 
several  months.  In  December  the  matter  was  again  taken 
up  and  his  office  agreed  to  put  the  manuscript  in  Judge 
Gary's  calendar  of  work  for  his  own  decision  as  to  whether 
or  not  he  would  read  the  manuscript,  or  have  it  read,  with 
this  end  in  view. 

At  the  end  of  March,  as  no  reply  had  yet  been  received 
from  Judge  Gary's  office  and  inquiry  revealed  that  the 
matter  was  still  merely  awaiting  his  attention,  the  author 
urged  an  opportunity  to  present  the  whole  matter  to 
Judge  Gary  personally.  In  a  brief  interview  the  author 
explained  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  present  analysis, 
including  the  fact  that  it  had  been  carefully  edited  and 
would  be  still  further  edited  before  publication  by  men  who 
were  both  impartial  and  particularly  qualified  to  pass  on 


XX  FOREWORD 

the  subjects  in  the  present  analysis  to  which  they  were  giv- 
ing special  attention.  He  urged  the  desirability,  for  the 
sake  of  completeness  and  accuracy,  of  obtaining  the  point  of 
view  of  the  steel  industry  and  if  possible  Judge  Gary's  own 
opinion  on  certain  specific  points.  Judge  Gary  replied 
in  effect  that  under  the  particular  circumstances  surround- 
ing the  Interchurch  investigation,  and  especially  because  of 
the  nature  of  some  of  the  conclusions  reached  by  the  present 
analysis,  he  felt  that  if  he  went  over  the  analysis  in  advance 
of  publication  and  offered  any  suggestions  that  that  fact 
might  be  misinterpreted  as  having  unduly  influenced  some 
of  the  conclusions  reached.  He  believed,  therefore,  it  was 
wiser  for  him  to  remain  in  the  position  of  having  no  detailed 
knowledge  of  the  subject  matter  of  the  present  analysis.  He 
stated,  however,  that  he  hoped  that  great  care  would  be 
exercised  in  the  matter  of  its  detailed  accuracy  as,  in  his 
opinion,  such  an  analysis  would  be  valuable,  from  any  point 
of  view,  only  to  the  extent  that  its  accuracy  could  be 
absolutely  depended  on.  He  added  that  while  no  in- 
formation would  be  volunteered,  Mr.  Filbert,  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Corporation,  who  was  present,  would  supply 
any  merely  detailed  figures  or  facts  which  he  reasonably 
could  and  which  the  author  would  take  the  initiative  in 
requesting.  The  few  specific  figures  which  were  thus 
ultimately  supplied  are  in  each  case  accompanied  by  a  foot- 
note stating  their  source. 

As  stated  the  present  volume  has  been  prepared  in  two 
parts.     The  main  section — 

PART  ONE 

ANALYSIS    OF    THE    INTERCHURCH    REPORT    ON    THE    STEEL 

STRIKE 

consists  of  a  critical  analysis  of  the  evidences,  arguments 
and  conclusions  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel 
Strike  as  published. 

In  his  foreword  to  the  present  volume.  Dr.  Jenks  has. 


FOREWORD  xxi 

very  properly,  emphasized  that  the  story  of  such  an  import- 
ant industrial  controversy  as  the  steel  strike,  if  it  is  to  do 
good  rather  than  harm,  must  be  told  "with  complete  regard 
for  the  exact  truth."  Certainly  then  an  analysis  which 
presumes  to  criticize  the  accuracy  of  such  a  story  must  itself 
be  punctilious  in  this  regard.  Dr.  Jenks  had  pointed  this 
fact  out  from  the  beginning;  this  was  the  only  suggestion 
Judge  Gary  had  been  willing  to  make;  in  all  editing  it  had 
been  kept  particularly  in  mind.  But  the  editing  up  to  this 
point  had  been  chiefly  constructive.  In  June  (1922)  Part 
One  was  put  into  type  so  that  copies  of  the  text  could  be 
submitted  in  whole  or  in  part  for  a  wide  variety  of  detailed 
criticisms. 

The  statistical  sections  were  thus  reviewed  with  particular 
care.  On  the  suggestion  of  certain  statistical  authorities 
with  whom  the  author  advised,  such  sections  were  submitted 
to  Dr.  Ernest  S.  Bradford,  Vice  President  of  the  American 
Statistical  Association,  for  the  purpose  of  having  them  sub- 
jected to  the  most  rigid  and  detailed  technical  criticism. 

Dr.  Bradford  turned  these  sections  over  for  this  pur- 
pose to  Mr.  Arthur  R.  Burnet  of  the  American  Statistical 
Association  and  Mr.  W.  Herman  Greul,  M.E.,  a  specialist  in 
Industrial  Engineering.  Mr.  Burnet  and  Mr.  Gruel  kindly 
gave  some  two  weeks  of  their  time  to  a  study  of  these 
sections — namely  Chapters  III  to  IX  inclusive — and 
offered  many  valuable  suggestions  as  to  simpler  and  more 
uniform  methods  of  presenting  the  various  statistics  in* 
volved.     These  suggestions  have  in  each  case  been  followed. 

As  Mr.  Burnet  and  Mr.  Greul  were  not  in  a  position  to 
devote  further  time  to  the  subject,  and  as  the  author  had 
planned  from  the  beginning  of  the  work  to  have  the  de- 
tailed accuracy  of  all  citations  and  quotations  as  well  as  all 
statistics  throughout  the  analysis  passed  on  by  competent 
outside  authority  of  recognized  impartiality,  Haskins  and 
Sells,  Certified  Public  Accountants,  were  employed  for 
this  purpose.  Their  statement  of  certification  appears  on 
page  ix. 


xxii  FOREWORD 

PART  TWO 

HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH  REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL 
STRIKE 

consists  of  a  brief  outline  of  the  facts  and  circumstances  which 
led  up  to  the  Interchurch  investigation  and  Report  on  the 
Steel  Strike ;  statements  as  to  the  personnel  of  the  principal 
committees  or  other  bodies  which  assisted  towards  or  in  the 
investigation  and  publication  of  the  Report ;  together  with  a 
brief  history  of  the  composition  and  authorization  of  the 
Report. 

The  facts  and  circumstances  dealt  with  in  Part  Two  are  in 
general  not  matters  of  printed  or  even  available  written 
record.  The  evidence  here  is  thus  of  an  entirely  different 
nature  and  must  be  treated  on  an  entirely  different  basis 
than  that  analyzed  in  Part  One. 

Moreover  the  Interchurch  Report  as  a  published  docu- 
ment can  be  analyzed  and  judged  on  its  own  merits  so  that 
facts  as  to  its  origin  and  authorship  must  be  regarded  as 
secondary. 

For  these  reasons  Part  Two  is  treated  entirely  separately 
and  subordinately. 


Attention  is  called  to  tJie  fact  that  the  summaries  to  both 
parts  One  and  Two  consist  chiefly,  not  of  conclusions  but  of 
recapitulations  of  evidence. 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE 


CHAPTER 


PACB 


I. — Methods  of  Analysis  Adopted      .         .        3 
II. — Purpose  and  Cause  of  Steel  Strike      .        8 

SECTION  A 

ISSUES  AND  ARGUMENTS  DETERMINABLE  ON  THE  BASIS 
OF   DEFINITE  FACTS 

III. — ^Wages  in  the  Steel  Industry        .         .       17 

IV. — Interchurch  Arguments  as  to  Annual 

Steel  Wages 29 

V. — Interchurch  Argument  as   to   Wages 

PER  Hour  ......      39 

VI. — Interchurch  Argument  as  to  the  Rela- 
tion BETWEEN  Steel  Wages  and  Living 
Costs ^g 

VII.— Changing  THE  Whole  Basis  of  American 

Social  and  Economic  Organization     .       55 
VIII. — Steel  Wages  and  Steel  Profits    .         .       66 

IX.— Interchurch   Arguments  as  to   Steel 

Working  Hours        .  -> 

74 

X.— The  Nature  of  i 2-Hour  Work      .         .108 
XI.— Steel  Working  Hours  Compared  with 

Hours  in  Other  Industries       .         .119 
XII.— Hazards  and  Hardships  of  Steel  Work     140 
XIII. — Existing     Relations     between     Steel 

Companies  AND  Steel  Workers  .         .156 


XXlll 


xxiv  CONTENTS 

SECTION  B 

CBAPTBS  PAGE 

ISSUES  AND  ARGUMENTS   DETERMINABLE   ONLY   ON   A 
BASIS  OP  THE   WEIGHT  OF  EVIDENCE 

XIV. — Introduction  to  Section  B    .  .  .     i75 

XV. — Origin  of  the  Strike  Movement  .  .180 

XVI. — Radicalism  in  the  Steel  Strike  .  .     189 

XVII. — Response  of  the  Steel  Workers  .  .210 

SECTION  C 

"  SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  " 

ISSUES  AND  ARGUMENTS  INVOLVING  SOCIAL  ISSUES 
AND  THEREFORE  PERSONAL  POINTS  OF  VIEW 

XVIII. — Social  Aspects  of  the  i  2-Hour  Day       .     229 

XIX. — Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining    .     246 

XX. — Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining  as 
Particularly  Applied  to  the  Steel 
Industry    .         .         .         .         .         .268 

XXI. — "Social  Consequences"  of  the  Atti- 
tude OF  the  Public  towards  the 
Steel  Strike     .         .         .         .         .281 

XXII. — "Abrogation  of  the    Right    of    Free 

Speech  and  Assembly  "      .         .         .     289 

XXIII. — "  Police  Brutality  "  and  "  Denial  of 
Justice"  " Rock  Bottom"  Affidavits 
Analyzed        .....         309 

SECTION  D 

XXIV. — Actual  Effect   and    Purpose    of    the 

Interchurch  Report  .         .         .     336 

XXV. — Summary  of  Part  One   ....     371 


PART  ONE 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE   INTERCHURCH   REPORT   ON  THK 

ERRATA 

page  383,  line  24 

"generally  "  should  read  "  frequently." 

page  419 

Pour  statements  not  three  bear  dates  later  than  Nov.  ist. 

pages  441-2 

Mr.  Dennett's  statements  accompanying  his  signed  state- 
ment were  not  approved  by  him  in  their  present  foim 
before  publication. 


2Lxiv  CONTENTS 

SECTION  B 

CHAPTER  PACK 

ISSUES  AND  ARGUMENTS   DETERMINABLE   ONLY   ON   A 
BASIS   OF   THE   WEIGHT  OP  EVIDENCE 

XIV. — Introduction  TO  Section  B    .  .  .175 

XV. — Origin  of  the  Strike  Movement  .  .180 

XVI. — Radicalism  in  the  Steel  Strike  .  ,     189 

XVII. — Response  of  the  Steel  Workers  .  .210 

SECTION  C 

"  SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  " 

ISSUES  AND  ARGUMENTS  INVOLVING  SOCIAL  ISSUES 
AND  THEREFORE  PERSONAT.  poimto  ^^ 


.  .  .  .  309 

SECTION  D 

XXIV. — Actual  Effect  and    Purpose    of    the 

Interchurch  Report  .         .         .     336 

XXV. — Summary  of  Part  One   ....    371 


PART  ONE 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE   INTERCHURCH  REPORT  ON  THE 
STEEL   STRIKE 

Analysis  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  Steel 
Strike  Report — as  to  the  accuracy  and  adequacy  of  its 
facts — as  to  the  logic  of  its  reasoning — as  to  the  soundness 
of  its  conclusions — as  to  the  adequacy  of  the  bases  for  its 
assumptions  and  speculations.  This  analysis  of  the  Report 
is  made  entirely  on  the  merits  of  the  doctmient  itself  without 
any  relation  to  facts  presented  in  Part  Two. 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 
METHOD  OF  ANALYSIS  ADOPTED 

There  are  various  possible  methods  of  procedure  in 
attempting  to  analyze  any  report  of  an  investigation. 

Perhaps  the  most  obvious  method  is  to  examine  point 
by  point  the  fundamental  evidence  on  which  the  report  it- 
self is  based,  to  discover  if  such  evidence  is  adequate  and  if 
it  fairly  leads  to  the  conclusions  which  the  report  deduces 
from  it. 

The  Interchurch  World  Movement  Report  on  the  steel 
strike  states  (page  9 — ^line  12) : 

"  The  statements  and  affidavits  of  500  steel  workers  carefully  compared 
and  tested  constitute  the  rock  bottom  of  the  findings,  the  testimony  of  the 
leaders  on  both  sides  being  used  chiefly  to  interpret  these  findings. " 

Only  a  comparative  few  of  these  500  affidavits,  however, 
which  thus  "constitute  the  rock  bottom  of  the  findings," 
are  themselves  presented  in  the  Report  or  otherwise.  There 
is  no  way,  therefore,  of  making  any  adequate  examination 
of  the  fundamental  evidence  on  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  on  the  steel  strike  is  based  to  determine  whether 
or  not  its  conclusions  are  fair  and  warranted  even  by  the 
evidence  on  which  they  are  based. 

Moreover  no  evidence  is  presented  as  to  who  most  of  the 
500  persons  were  who  made  these  affidavits  except  that  they 
were  chiefly  "of  the  mass  of  low-skilled  foreigners"  (page 
9 — ^line  4).    No  evidence,  or  even  statement,  is  presented 

3 


4    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

as  to  why  it  can  be  presumed  that  these  500  men  spoke  for, 
or  represented  the  opinion  of,  the  300,000  other  men  who 
the  Report  says  struck,  or  the  200,000  others  who  the 
Report  admits  did  not  strike.  Not  only  therefore  does  the 
Report  itself  fail  to  offer  any  proof  as  to  the  adequacy  of 
the  "rock  bottom"  evidence  on  which  it  states  it  is  based 
but  even  the  most  friendly  honest  critic  cannot  but  ques- 
tion the  possibility  that  500  affidavits  "chiefly  of  the  mass 
of  low-skilled  foreigners"  could  under  any  circumstances 
be  adequate  "rock  bottom"  evidence  on  which  to  deter- 
mine complex  questions  involving  500,000  men  and  the 
operation  of  a  great  basic  industry. 

With  the  possibility  of  analyzing  the  Interchurch  Steel 
Strike  Report  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  "fundamental 
evidence"  on  which  it  is  based  thus  eliminated,  the  most 
obvious  alternative  is  to  take  up  point  by  point  the  con- 
clusions of  the  Report  itself,  analyzing  such  evidence  as  is 
presented,  comparing  it  with  all  other  available  evidence 
and  judging  its  conclusions  accordingly. 

Even  most  casual  examination  of  this  Report,  however, 
immediately  reveals  the  fact  that  it  presents  24 ' '  Conclusions 
and  Recommendations"  in  the  "Introduction"  (pages  11- 
19)  and  41  "Conclusions  and  Recommendations"  in  a 
separate  "Findings"  (pages  246-250),  which  two  groups  of 
conclusions  and  recommendations  have  little  organic  rela- 
tion, as  to  either  specific  subject  matter  or  expression,  to 
one  another. 

Moreover  the  seven  chapters  into  which  the  Report  itself 
is  divided,  while  they  of  course  have  a  general  relation  to 
both  these  separate  groups  of  conclusions  and  recommenda- 
tions do  not  express  that  relation  in  any  organized  form 
either  as  to  arrangement  or  wording. 

Finally  any  attempt  to  follow  subject  by  subject  either 
the  "Conclusions  and  Recommendations"  as  expressed  in 
the  "Introduction"  or  as  expressed  chapter  by  chapter  in 
the  main  report,  immediately  reveals  the  fact  that  in  either 
case  each  sub-division  deals  with  a  complexity  of  subjects 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE  5 

each  one  of  which  has  often  to  be  treated  on  an  entirely 
different  basis  and  each  one  of  which  is  often  referred  to  in 
many  subdivisions. 

The  third  group  of  Conclusions  and  Recommendations — 
the  "Findings" — were  written  at  a  different  time  and  by 
different  men  than  the  Report  itself  including  its  "Con- 
clusions" and  "Recommendations"  as  they  appear  in  the 
"Introduction."  These  "Findings"  are  arranged  with 
precision  and  in  logical  order  but  their  phraseology  is  so 
different  from  that  of  the  Report  itself  and  is  often  so 
general  that  it  is  difficult,  and  frequently  impossible, 
to  relate  it  specifically  to  the  evidence  in  the  Report 
itself. 

For  instance  the  first  Section  of  the  "Findings"  con- 
demns the  "Boss  system."  The  phrase"  "Boss  system" 
does  not  occur  in  the  index  to  the  Report  proper,  as  far  as 
can  be  discovered  is  not  discussed  in  the  Report  proper,  and 
the  phrase  itself  is  so  indefinite  that  it  is  impossible  even  to 
relate  it  with  any  assurance  to  the  Report  proper. 

Again  the  second  Section  of  the  "Findings"  recommends 
"Industrial  Democracy."  That  phrase  also  does  not  occur 
in  the  index  and  is  not  discussed  in  the  Report  proper ;  it  is 
entirely  vague  in  itself  and  neither  the  "Findings"  nor  the 
Report  proper  even  remotely  suggests  how  it  is  proposed 
that  men  stated  to  belong  to  56  different  nationalities  with 
different  languages,  most  of  them  with  only  a  smattering 
of  English,  can  be  suddenly  and  arbitrarily  formed  into  any 
kind  of  a  democracy. 

As  a  matter  of  logical  necessity  then,  the  present  analysis 
discusses  the  general  subjects  dealt  with  in  the  Steel  Strike 
Report  in  a  somewhat  different  order  than  they  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  Report.  The  particular  order  chosen  and  the 
reason  for  it  are  stated  in  the  second  chapter. 

It  will  be  particularly  noted  in  the  following  analysis 
that  in  certain  instances  only  minor  regard  is  given  as  to 
whether  particular  contentions  of  either  the  strike  leaders 
or  of  the  steel  companies  were  more  true.     The  steel  strike 


6    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

is  long  since  over  and  certain  of  its  facts  and  contentions, 
as  such,  have  only  minor  historical  interest. 

It  will  be  noted,  however,  that  particular  attention  is 
given  to  the  attitude  and  arguments  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  on  such  points  because  it  is  the  question  of  the 
soundness  of  the  Interchurch  Report  and  its  adequacy  as  an 
Industrial  text-book  that  is  of  particular  interest  in  the 
present  analysis. 

The  Interchurch  Report  states  (page  8,  paragraph  7) : 

"The  United  States  Steel  Corporation  was  the  admittedly  decisive 
influence.  Whatever  the  Steel  Corporation  does,  the  rest  of  the  industry 
will  ultimately  do,"  and  again  (page  1 1 ,  paragraph  3)  "  The  conduct  of 
the  Iron  and  Steel  industry  was  determined  by  the  conditions  of  labor 
accepted  by  the  191,000  employees  of  the  United  States  Steel  manu- 
facturing plants. " 

Moreover  in  giving  facts,  figures  and  statistics  in  regard 
to  the  steel  controversy,  the  Interchurch  Report  almost 
invariably  gives  such  facts  and  figures  as  they  refer  to  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  undoubtedly  because  such  figures 
are  most  available,  as  well  as  in  keeping  with  its  theory  in 
regard  to  the  determining  influence  of  the  Corporation  in  the 
industry. 

As  the  present  analysis  is  primarily  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  rather  than  of  the  steel  situation  as  such,  it  follows 
the  Interchurch  Report's  policy  of  thus  putting  major 
emphasis  on  facts  and  figures  as  they  apply  to  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation. 

For  the  same  reason  the  present  analysis  has,  in  certain 
cases  where  the  Interchurch  Report's  own  statements  or 
figures  reduce  its  arguments  to  self-contradiction  or  other 
logical  absurdity,  merely  used  such  statement  or  figure  to 
this  end  without  going  further  into  the  merits  of  the  state- 
ments or  figures  themselves. 

Finally  the  fact  that  the  present  analysis  is  of  the  Inter- 
church Report  and  not  of  the  steel  situation  and  contro- 
versy as  such,  makes  it  obviously  inadvisable  to  bring  up 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE  7 

or  discuss  the  right  or  wrong  of  any  conditions  in  the  steel 
industry  except  those  brought  up  by  the  Interchurch  Report 
or  plainly  related  to  those  brought  up  by  the  Interchurch 
Report. 

The  present  analysis  is  built  on  a  careful  study  of  some 
8000  pages  of  original  evidence  concerning  or  related  to  the 
subjects  under  discussion.  It  is  seldom  possible  therefore 
in  quotations  to  use  more  than  excerpts  from  the  original. 
Also  in  quoting  from  voluminous  evidence  involving  ntmier- 
ous  subjects  and  particularly  where  one  subject  is  touched 
on  and  later  returned  to — as  in  testimony  which  is  being 
cross-examined  by  several  cross-examiners  —  the  present 
analysis,  for  clearness  and  continuity,  in  a  few  cases  quotes 
such  excerpts  in  their  logical  rather  than  their  original  order, 
showing  the  break  of  course  by  the  conventional  "  .  .  ." 
Quotations  are  always,  however,  accompanied  by  specific 
citation  of  the  original  by  volume,  page,  and  paragraph  or 
line,  so  that  reference  can  easily  be  made  directly  to  the 
original. 

The  Interchurch  Report  throughout  uses  certain  terms  in- 
accurately or  defines  them  incorrectly.  For  instance  it 
continually  uses  such  terms  as  "all  steel  workers,"  the 
"steel  industry  as  a  whole,"  etc.,  in  connection  with  facts 
and  figures  which  apply  only  to  primary  production  de- 
partments. The  present  analysis  when  discussing  Inter- 
church arguments  in  order  to  avoid  confusion  generally 
uses  such  terms  in  the  same  meaning  as  the  Interchurch 
Report  uses  them.  In  discussing  the  same  points  on  their 
merits,  however,  it  will  often  define  and  use  such  terms 
differently. 

All  italics,  unless  otherwise  stated,  are  the  authors'. 

Comment  within  quotations  enclosed  in  parentheses,  i.  e., 
(  .  .  .  )  is  the  author's.  Such  comment  inclosed  in  brackets, 
i.  e.,  [  .  .  .  ]  is  part  of  the  original. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PURPOSE  AND  CAUSE  OF  THE  STEEL   STRIKE 

The  Interchurch  Report  states  the  purpose  of  the  Steel 
Strike  (page  15,  section  11): 

"  The  organizing  campaign  of  the  workers  and  the  Strike  were  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  a  conference  .  .  .  this  specific  conference  to  set  up 
trade  union  collective  bargaining. " 

Mr.  Gompers  in  his  letter  of  June  20, 1919,  to  Judge  Gary 
says: 

"...  The  A.  F.  of  L.  decided  ...  to  bring  about  a  thorough 
organization  of  the  workers  in  the  Iron  and  Steel  Industry  ...  we  aim 
to  accomplish  the  purpose  of  our  labor  movement  .  .  .  to  enter  into  an 
agreement  for  collective  bargaining  that  is  to  cover  wages,  hours  of  labor, 
conditions  of  employment,  etc. " 

That  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  unionization  efforts  that 
preceded  the  steel  strike  to  unionize  the  mills  and  set  up 
trade  unions  collective  bargaining  with  the  employers,  in 
which  the  A.  F.  of  L.  and  its  subsidiary  unions  were  to 
represent  the  employees,  and  that  the  purpose  of  the  strike 
itself  was  to  enforce  this  demand  for  such  collective  bar- 
gaining, was  repeatedly  emphasized  by  other  strike  leaders. 

That  the  Steel  Corporation  regarded  trade  union  collec- 
tive bargaining  as  the  basic  question  at  issue  is  plainly 
indicated  by  Judge  Gary's  statement  to  the  officers  of  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  which  was  published  in  the  Senate 
Hearings  (Part  I,  page  97) : 

8 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE  9 

"  Not  long  since  I  respectfully  declined  to  meet  for  the  purpose  of 
discussing  matters  pertaining  to  labor  at  our  various  plants  a  number  of 
gentlemen  representing  certain  labor  unions.  They  claim  that  this 
furnishes  cause  for  complaint  and  have  stated  that  they  intend  if  possible 
to  prevent  a  continuation  of  operations  at  our  mills  and  factories.  .  .  . 
I  entertain  no  feelings  nor  animosity  toward  the  gentlemen  personally 
and  would  not  hesitate  to  meet  them  as  individuals  but  I  did  not  con- 
sider it  proper  to  confer  with  them  under  the  circumstances  .  .  .  fiist, 
because  I  did  not  believe  the  gentlemen  were  authorized  to  speak  for 
large  numbers  of  our  employees;  ...  we  do  not  negotiate  with 
labor  unions  because  it  wovdd  indicate  the  closing  of  our  shops  against 
non-union  labor  and  large  numbers  of  our  workers  are  not  members  of 
unions  and  do  not  care  to  be. " 


There  is  no  question,  then,  as  to  the  expressed  purpose 
of  the  attempted  unionization  of  the  steel  industry  or  the 
steel  strike — that  it  was  to  establish  trade  union  collective 
bargaining. 

Pursuant  to  their  purpose  of  establishing  trade  union 
collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry,  with  themselves 
as  the  official  representatives  of  the  men,  after  a  certain 
period  of  unionization  work  among  the  men,  the  strike 
leaders  proposed  to  Judge  Gary  a  conference  which  in  itself 
constituted  a  recognition  and  initiation  of  collective  bar- 
gaining. Judge  Gary  though  stating  his  willingness  to 
meet  the  strike  leaders  as  individuals  refused  to  recognize 
them  as  representing  the  steel  workers  and  meet  them  in 
such  a  conference  as  was  proposed. 

The  union  leaders  at  the  time  of  the  strike  put  great 
emphasis  on  this  refusal  of  Judge  Gary  to  meet  them  in 
conference  and  tried  to  treat  it  as  though  it  itself  were  a 
paramount  issue  in  the  controversy  and  the  strike. 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  President  of  the  special  committee  that 
planned  and  organized  the  steel  strike  testified  before  the 
Senate  Committee: 

"  The  strike  at  the  present  time  is  brought  about  by  the  refusal  on  the 
part  of  Judge  Gary  to  meet  a  conference.  There  is  nothing  else  in- 
volved in  the  situation."     (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  51.) 


10       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Also  the  other  strike  leaders  specifically  declared  that  the 
cause  of  the  steel  strike  was  Judge  Gary's  refusal  to  recog- 
nize them  as  representing  the  steel  workers  and  to  meet 
them  in  conference,  and  therefore  that  Judge  Gary  was  the 
cause  of  the  steel  strike. 

Such  an  allegation  of  course  is  fairly  parallel  to  the 
possible  allegation  that  a  man  who  was  shot,  was  shot 
because  he  refused  to  hold  up  his  hands  when  he  was  told  to. 
Such  an  allegation  can  only  be  justified  if  the  man  who  did 
the  shooting  was  an  officer  of  the  law  or  the  circimistances 
were  otherwise  such  that  he  had  a  right  to  demand  and  the 
victim  had  no  right  to  refuse  to  hold  up  his  hands. 

But  whether  under  the  existing  circumstances  the  strike 
leaders  did  have  a  right  to  insist  upon,  or  whether  in  view 
of  all  the  conditions  Judge  Gary  had  no  right  to  refuse  such 
a  conference  is  at  the  least  a  matter  of  opinion  based  on  the 
interpretation  of  the  facts  in  regard  to  those  conditions  and 
circumstances. 

Moreover,  considering  the  known  point  of  view  and  the 
express  demands  of  the  strike  leaders  and  the  known  point 
of  view  of  the  steel  companies,  there  is  little  question  that 
such  conference,  even  if  it  had  been  held,  would  have 
resulted  so  unsatisfactorily  to  the  strike  leaders  that  the 
strike  would  have  been  called  just  the  same. 

Even  if  there  is  assigned,  then,  as  much  weight  to  Judge 
Gary's  refusal  of  a  conference  as  the  strike  leaders  them- 
selves assign  to  that  refusal  as  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
strike,  the  facts  which  caused  the  strike  leaders  to  insist  on 
this  conference  and  caused  Judge  Gary  to  refuse  it,  are 
back  of  and  paramount  to  this  request  and  refusal,  and 
these  circumstances  are  plainly  those  in  regard  to  the 
attempts  by  the  strike  leaders  to  unionize  the  steel  workers 
and  to  establish  trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the 
steel  industry  and  Judge  Gary's  reasons  for  refusing  to 
acqmesce  in  such  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry. 

The  reason  stated  by  Judge  Gary  for  his  refusal  to  recog- 
nize or  cooperate  in  trade  union  collective  bargaining  with 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         ii 

the  strike  leaders  as  representatives  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  also 
representing  the  steel  workers,  was: 

"We  do  not  think  you  are  authorized  to  represent  the  sentiments  of 
the  majority  of  the  ^ployees  of  the  U.  S.  steel  corporation  and  its 
subsidiaries  .  .  .  the  corporation  and  its  subsidiaries  are  opposed  to 
the  'closed  shop '  (the  admitted  aim  of  trade  vinion  collective  bargain- 
ing). They  stand  for  the  'open  shop'  which  .  .  .  best  promotes  the 
welfare  of  both  employers  and  employees.  .  .  .  In  wage  rates,  living  and 
working  conditions,  conservation  for  life  and  health,  care  and  comfort 
in  time  of  sickness  or  old  age,  and  providing  facilities  for  the  general 
welfare  and  happiness  of  employees  and  their  families,  the  corporation 
and  its  subsidiaries  have  endeavored  to  occupy  a  leading  and  advanced 
position  among  employers."  (Judge  Gary's  letter  of  Aug.  27,  19 19,  to 
Committee  of  Strike  leaders.) 

"The  strike  was  inaugurated  by  the  union  leaders  not  by  the  men. 
The  vmion  leaders  have  been  attempting  all  these  years  to  organize  the 
men.  The  men  have  not  been  seeking  the  assistance  of  anyone  to 
organize  them."  (Judge  Gary,  Senate  Hearings,  Part  I— Page  153, 
Line  28.) 

It  was  the  contention  of  the  strike  leaders,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  they  "did  represent  the  sentiment  of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  employees  in  this  industry" — were  "acting 
in  behalf  of  the  men"  and  were  "selected  by  duly  accredited 
representatives  of  the  employees"  (letter  of  Strike  Com- 
mittee to  Judge  Gary,  Aug.  26,  191 9)  and  that  the  vast 
majority  of  the  employees  wanted  and  required  trade  union 
collective  bargaining  because 

"conditions  of  employment,  the  home  life,  the  misery  in  the  hovels  of 
the  steel  workers  is  beyond  description  .  .  .  the  standard  of  life  of  the 
average  steel  worker  is  below  the  pauper  line"  (Letter  of  Strike  Com- 
mittee to  Judge  Gary,  Aug.  27, 1919). 

These  points  at  issue,  with  their  variations,  were  dis- 
cussed in  detail  in  the  correspondence  between  the  strike 
leaders  and  the  company,  in  the  testimony  before  the  Senate 
Investigating  Committee,  in  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the 
Steel  Strike,  in  Mr.  Foster's  book.  The  Great  Steel  Strike 
and  in  other  published  discussions  either  official  or  from 


12       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

official  information.  The  Interchurch  Report  also  dis- 
cusses at  great  length  a  considerable  number  of  alleged 
points  at  issue  which  had  not  previously  been  raised — at 
least  publicly — by  either  party  to  the  controversy.  A 
careful  study  of  all  this  docimientary  evidence  indicates 
that  at  least  the  principal  points  at  issue  may  be  simimarized 
as  follows : 

First,  the  strike  leaders  claimed  that  in  their  effort  to 
unionize  the  steel  industry  on  the  basis  of  trade  union  collec- 
tive bargaining  they  represented  the  great  majority  of  the 
steel  workers  and  the  interests  of  all  the  steel  workers.  The 
steel  companies  denied  that  the  strike  leaders  represented 
the  workers  or  the  sentiment  of  the  workers  in  general  or 
the  interest  of  the  workers,  but  insisted  that  the  strike 
leaders  were  outsiders  who  had  taken  the  initiative  in  pro- 
jecting themselves  into  the  steel  industry  without  invita- 
tion from  the  men  and  against  the  wishes  of  the  majority 
of  the  men;  and  that  their  unionization  efforts  included 
"radical"  agitation  among  the  foreign  workers. 

Second,  the  strike  leaders  asserted  that  the  workers  re- 
quired trade  union  collective  bargaining  because  they 
neither  possessed  nor  were  allowed  to  establish  any  ade- 
quate channels  for  expressing  or  negotiating  as  to  any 
grievances  with  their  employers.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
steel  companies  stated  that  it  was  their  practice  to  take  the 
initiative  in  seeking  continually  to  advance  the  interests 
of  the  workers  and  that  the  workers  were  always  free,  and 
had,  when  the  occasion  had  arisen,  frequently  availed  them- 
selves of  that  freedom,  to  present  grievances  and  that  it  had 
been  the  instruction  of  the  companies  to  all  executives  to 
give  the  utmost  consideration  to  any  such  complaints. 

Third,  the  strike  leaders  alleged  that  trade  union  collec- 
tive bargaining  was  necessary  to  the  workers'  interest 
because  the  workers  were  being  paid  wages  below  the  pauper 
level.  The  steel  companies  stated  that  steel  wages  were 
among  the  very  highest  in  industry  and  that  it  had  always 
been  their  policy  to  keep  them  there. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        13 

Fourth,  the  strike  leaders  insisted  that  trade  union  collec- 
tive bargaining  was  necessary  to  improve  the  working 
conditions  and  particularly  to  relieve  the  men  of  their  long 
oppressive  hours  of  work.  The  steel  companies  stated  that 
the  majority  of  their  men  preferred  the  longer  hours  because 
of  the  higher  pay  they  brought — that  because  of  automatic 
machinery  and  periods  of  intermission  a  great  part  of  the 
work  was  not  unduly  hard  and  that  where  the  work  was 
especially  hard  and  the  men  had  expressed  the  desire  for  it 
the  hours  had  been  reduced  to  eight  instead  of  ten  or  twelve 
a  day.  The  Interchiu-ch  Report  makes  very  much  more  of 
the  heaviness  and  also  of  the  hazard  of  steel  labor  than  was 
made  by  either  the  strike  leaders  or  the  men  themselves, 
who  testified  as  to  working  conditions. 

Fifth,  the  strike  leaders  insisted  that  trade  union  collec- 
tive bargaining  was  necessary  for  certain  other  purposes — 
in  order  that  "the  principle  of  seniority  (instead  of  that  of 
merit)  should  apply  in  maintaining  and  reducing  and  in- 
creasing working  forces" — in  order  that  "existing  local 
unions  should  be  abolished" — in  order  that  "physical 
examination  of  applicants  for  employment  should  be 
abolished"  in  order  that  the  "check  off  system  of  collecting 
union  dues  and  assessments"  (the  system  by  which  the 
union  dues  are  collected  by  the  union  from  the  company 
and  subtracted  from  the  worker's  wages  instead  of  being 
collected  from  the  worker  himself)  should  be  established, 
and  in  general  that  trade  union  collective  bargaining  was 
necessary  to  change  and  control  other  and  general  condi- 
tions of  work  and  the  relations  between  the  men  and  the 
companies. 

It  will  at  once  appear  from  any  analysis  of  the  foregoing 
points  at  issue  that  certain  of  them  constitute  direct  issues 
of  fact.  In  the  following  analysis,  these  will  be  considered 
first  under  Section  A . 

It  is  equally  obvious  that  other  points  constitute  issues  of 
fact  as  to  the  opinions  of  large  numbers  of  men  or  are  based 
on  interpretation  of  facts  or  on  which  of  various  facts  are  to 


14        REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

be  regarded  as  more  important.  Any  conclusion  as  to  the 
merits  of  such  points  at  issue  must  be  determined  by  the 
weight  of  evidence.  Such  points  will  be  discussed  second 
under  Section  B. 

Finally  it  will  be  noted  that  certain  of  these  points  at 
issue  involve  broad  general  industrial  or  social  considerations 
which  involve  to  a  particular  degree  individual  opinion. 
Such  points  at  issue  will  be  discussed  third  under  Section  C. 


SECTION  A 

Issues  in  the  Steel  Strike  and  Arguments  of  the  Inter  church 
Report  which  are  susceptible  of  being  determined  on  a  basis  of 
definite  FA  CTS. 


15 


CHAPTER  III 

WAGES  IN  THE   STEEL  INDUSTRY 

In  Appendix  B  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel 
Strike,  pages  265  and  266  are  entirely  taken  up  with  a  table 
which  is  itself  not  discussed  or  even  referred  to  in  the  Report 
proper. 

The  first  figures  given,  which  are  stated  to  be  from  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Review,  October,  1919,  are  as  follows: 

Earnings  Per 
Iron  and  Steel  Full  Week 

All  Employees $46.78 

Common  Labor 34-19 

Other  Labor  (including  skilled  and  semi-skilled) 51.74 

Below  these  figures  this  Interchurch  Report  Appendix 
table  then  gives  in  considerable  detail  earnings  for  ten  other 
general  industries.  The  industries  whose  wages  are  thus 
given  are,  as  will  appear  from  the  wage  figures  discussed 
later,  among  the  highest-wage,  if  not  the  highest-wage 
industries  in  the  country.  In  some  cases  the  Interchurch 
Appendix  gives  these  earnings  separately  for  common  labor 
in  the  industry  and  for  the  industry  as  a  whole,  in  other 
cases,  it  gives  them  for  common  labor  and  for  the  bal- 
ance of  the  industry — that  is  for  skilled  and  semi-skilled 
labor. 

These  figures  which  the  Interchurch  Report  publishes  in 
its  own  Appendix  as  from  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statis- 
tics, from  the  Federal  Railroad  administration  and  from 

a  17 


i8       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

other  authoritative  sources,  but  which  it  does  not  discuss 
or  consider  in  its  main  argument,  show  the  following : 

SKILLED  AND  SEMI-SKILLED  WORKERS 

1919 

Earnings  Per 
Industry  Full  Week 

IRON  AND  STEEL  (skilled  and  semi-skilled) $5 1.74 

U.  S.  ARSENALS  (skilled  and  semi-skilled) 36.53 

BUILDING  TRADES  (all  skilled) : 

Brick  Layers 3947 

Carpenters 34-56 

Cement  Workers  and  Finishers 36.28 

Wiremen  (inside) 3540 

Painters 32.61 

Plasterers 39.02 

Plumbers 40.66 

Sheet  Metal  Workers 35.60 

Steam  Fitters 40.83 

Structural  Iron  Workers 4^45 

NAVY  YARDS  (skilled  and  semi-skilled) 38.35 

PRINTERS  Various  cities  (all  skilled): 
Linotype  Operators: 

Newspapers,  day ^  35-72 

Book  and  Job 30.50 

Compositors: 

Newspapers,  day 35-59 

Book  and  Job 26.28 

RAILROADS  (all  skilled) : 

Machinists 34-56 

Blacksmiths 34-56 

Boiler  Makers 34-56 

RAILROADS  (semi-skilled): 

Firemen,  Freight 28.80 

Firemen,  Passenger 26.40 

Firemen,  Yard  Service 24.96 

Hostlers 25.49 

SHIP  YARDS  Pacific  Coast  (skilled  and  semi-skilled). . . .  36.38 

There  is  not  a  single  class  of  the  most  highly  skilled 
workers  in  any  of  the  other  representative  industries  given 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         19 

whose  earnings  come  within  $10  a  week  of  being  as  high  as 
the  average  for  skilled  and  semi-skilled  steel  workers. 
These  same  tables  also  show  the  following: 

EARNINGS  OF  ALL  WORKERS 

Skilled,  Setni-SkUled  and  Common 

1919 

Earnings  Pet 
Industry  Full  Week 

IRON  AND  STEEL $46.78 

COAL  MINING  ANTHRACITE: 

All  inside  Occupations 35-00 

COAL  MINING  BITUMINOUS: 

All  inside  occupations 38.42 

(In  both  cases,  outside  occupations  bring  the  whole  average 
much  lower — Anthracite  to  $2g.8g) 

BUILDING  TRADES,  all 37.58 

BUILDING  TRADES,  New  York  City 36.74 

SHIP  YARDS,  Atlantic  Coast 34.90 

STREET  RAILWAYS: 

North  Atlantic 28.09 

South  Atlantic 22.45 

North  Central . . . , 27.97 

Western 27.86 

The  Unweighted  average  excluding  Iron  and  Steel  is. . .  32. 1 1 

The  average  earnings  of  all  iron  and  steel  workers  is  thus 
$8  a  week  higher  than  average  earnings  in  the  next  highest 
industry — coal  mining — even  with  all  the  lowest  paid  classes 
of  coal  workers  omitted,  and  is  from  $10  to  $20  a  week  higher 
than  for  all  other  given  industries  which  are  among  the 
highest  paid  in  American  industry. 

As  regards  common  labor  these  same  tables  from  the 
Interchurch  Report  Appendix  show  the  following : 

EARNINGS  OF  COMMON  LABOR 

1919 

Earnings  Per 
Industry  .  Full  Week 

IRON  AND  STEEL $34.19 

COAL  MINING: 

Anthracite  inside  (outside  $21.26) 26.90 

Bituminous  inside 29.90 


20       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH      '' 

U.  S.  ARSENALS $22.08 

BUILDING  TRADES 22.88 

NAVY  YARDS 21.36 

RAILROADS     (footnote  i): 

Section  Men 37.2f5  per  hour 

Yard  Switch  Tenders 34-7^    "      " 

Other  Yard  Employees 374?^    "      " 

Engine  House  Men 42.3  ji    "      " 

Other  Unskilled  Labor 41.3^    "      " 

SHIP  YARDS: 

Pacific  Coast $24.96 

Atlantic  Coast 17.28 

It  is  plain  then  in  regard  to  common  labor  also  that  the 
steel  worker  is  by  far  the  highest  paid  in  all  the  industries 
given  which  as  stated  are  among  the  highest  paid  in  the 
country.  The  figures  given  for  coal  mining  include  only  the 
highest  paid  inside  and  leave  out  the  lower  paid  outside 
common  labor.  They  are  otherwise  higher  than  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor,  December,  191 9,  Monthly  Review,  from 
which  they  are  alleged  to  be  taken,  actually  shows  they 
should  be.  But  taking  them  as  given,  steel  common  labor 
wages  were  still  $5  to  $8  a  week  higher,  and  steel  common 
labor  wages  were  $12  to  $17  per  week  higher  than  common 
labor  wages  for  all  other  industries  given. 

But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  comparison  of  all  is 
that  between  the  actual  earnings  of  the  lowest  paid  steel 
worker — common  labor,  and  certain  classes  of  the  highest 
paid  skilled  workers  in  other  of  these  industries,  and  between 
steel  common  labor  and  all  workers — ^including  skilled  and 
semi-skilled — in  the  other  industries  given. 

Reference  to  the  Interchurch  Report's  own  Appendix 
figures  given  above,  most  of  which  are  stated  to  be  from 
official  government  sources — show  at  once  that  the  $34.19 
a  week  earnings  for  steel  common  labor  is  substantially  the 

»  Two  classifications  listed  by  the  Interchurch  table  as  common  labor 
are  here  omitted  because  they  are  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  as  their  wage 
rate  shows,  semi-skilled. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         21 

same  as  that  for  skilled  carpenters,  cement  workers,  wiremen, 
painters  and  sheet  metal  workers  of  the  building  trades. 
It  is  substantially  the  same  as  the  earnings  for  all  the  skilled 
railroad  workers  given  and  is  from  $6  to  $10  higher  than  the 
earnings  given  for  semi-skilled  railroad  workers.  It  is  higher 
than  the  average  earnings  of  skilled  printers  in  large  cities 
where  their  wages  are  highest. 

The  comparison  between  the  $34.19  earned  by  the  lowest 
paid  group  of  steel  workers  and  the  average  earned  by  all 
workers  in  all  the  high- wage  industries  given,  is  self -appar- 
ent by  reference  to  Table  Number  2  above.  The  Inter- 
church  Report  Appendix  figures  do  not  in  any  case  give 
numbers  of  workers  considered  so  that  they  cannot  be 
weighted  to  produce  exact  statistical  averages  for  exact 
comparison.  The  mathematical  average  of  the  earnings  of 
all  classes  of  workers — including  skilled  and  semi-skilled — 
for  all  these  other  high- wage  industries  is  $32.11.  Steel 
common  labor  earnings  were  $34.19. 

Moreover  the  farther  this  comparison  is  carried  into  still 
other  industries,  the  more  it  becomes  apparent  that  the 
lowest  paid  steel  worker — common  labor,  received  higher 
wages  than  all  workers — including  skilled  and  semi-skilled, 
in  the  great  majority  of  all  American  industries. 

On  page  6  the  Interchurch  Report,  in  naming  its  major 
authorities  and  those  who  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  the 
Report,  lists  "the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  in  Wash- 
ington" and  elsewhere  mentions  this  organization  as  one  of 
its  authorities.  This  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  has 
published  in  its  Bulletin  Number  8  (1920)  entitled  "Wages 
in  Various  Industries  and  Occupations"  perhaps  the  most 
comprehensive  r^sum^  of  comparative  wages  that  has  yet 
appeared. 

Statistics  as  to  wages  are  generally  given  on  one  of  two  bases. 
U.  S.  Government  statisticians,  statistical  engineers  and 
other  technical  authorities  in  this  field  follow  the  practise 
of  giving  wage  figures  in  terms  of  ''actual  earnings"  which 
are  derived  by  dividing  actual  wage  pay-rolls  for  each  group 


22       ANALYSIS  OF  fHE  INTERCHURCH 

of  workers  by  the  number  of  workers  in  that  group.  Wage 
figures  in  terms  of  "earnings"  therefore,  represent  the 
wages  the  workers  actually  receive.  All  the  figures  above 
given  and  discussed  are,  as  specified,  based  on  ''earn- 
ings.'* 

The  second  basis  on  which  wage  figures  are  given  is  known 
as  "wage  rates"  which  represent  merely  theoretical  or 
"paper  wages. "  Wage  figures  given  out  by  labor  unions — 
particularly  in  regard  to  their  own  industries — are  generally 
in  terms  of  ''wage  rates."  Wage  rates  of  course  may  in  some 
cases  approximate  actual  earnings  but  in  general  they  are 
higher  and  often  very  much  higher  than  earnings.  For 
instance,  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  Bulletin  Number  8 
on  pages  14  to  25  gives  detailed  figures  as  to  wages  in  the 
Building  trades  partly  for  1919  and  partly  for  1920,  which 
figures  were  chiefly  "furnished  by  union  officials."  They 
are  in  terms  of  wage  rates.  It  appears  from  these  figures  that 
on  the  basis  of  wage  rates  carpenters'  wages  were  $43.97  per 
week,  .yet  as  already  shown  carpenters*  actual  earnings  (191 9) 
were  $34.56.  Similarly  wage  rates  for  painters  were  $42.32 
but  earnings  only  $32.61.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  actiml 
earnings  of  steel  workers  were  so  much  higher  than  the  wages 
for  all  other  workers  for  which  authoritative  figures  for  1919 
can  be  discovered  that  it  makes  small  difference  whether 
these  other  wages  are  in  terms  of  earnings  or  rates. 

The  first  fifteen  chapters  of  the  Bureau  of  Applied 
Economics  Bulletin  Number  8  are  devoted  to  detailed 
figures  as  to  earnings  or  wage  rates  in  industries  which,  as 
far  as  1919  figures  are  given,  have  with  a  few  exceptions 
already  been  covered  in  the  preceding  tables,  and  in  most 
of  which  cases,  the  figures  are  either  the  same  or  more 
detailed  presentations  of  original  government  figures  from 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  Appendix  figures  are  also 
taken.  The  wage  figures  given  in  these  chapters  which 
have  not  .already  been  considered,  consist  of  farm  labor 
wages  which  averaged  in  1919  for  the  country  $56.29  a 
month  or  about  a  third  that  of  steel  common  labor  earnings; 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         23 

and  navy  wages  which  because  they  include  "keep"  are  so 
much  lower  as  to  be  incomparable  with  steel  wages. 

Chapter  XVI  of  Bulletin  No.  8  is  devoted  to  a  detailed 
study  of  teachers'  wages  throughout  the  country.  They 
were  for  all  schools  in  the  country  in  191 8,  $635  a  year  or 
$15.87  a  week  on  the  basis  of  a  40- week  year. 

Chapter  XIX  of  Bulletin  Number  8  is  devoted  to  a  study 
of  earnings  in  various  New  York  State  factories.  In  1919 
the  average  weekly  earnings  for  all  workers  including  skilled, 
semi-skilled  and  all  office  workers  as  well  as  common  labor 
in  all  New  York  State  factories  represented,  was  $23.50  or 
$1 1  a  week  less  than  the  earnings  of  the  lowest  class  of  steel 
workers. 

Beginning  with  Chapter  XX  the  balance  of  Bulletin 
Number  8  is  devoted  to  the  detailed  study  of  wages  in  a  wide 
variety  of  other  principal  manufacturing  industries.  All 
these  figures  are  based  on  actual  earnings.  They  are  for 
both  male  and  female  workers  whose  earnings  are  in  most 
cases  treated  separately.  The  averages  as  given  are 
weighted,  and  where  the  averages  themselves  are  not  given, 
details  are  given  which  make  computation  of  an  exact 
comparable  average  possible.  In  a  few  cases,  two  sets  of 
figures,  representing  either  different  groups  or  different  pay- 
roll periods  for  the  same  industry  are  given.  These  actual 
earnings  per  week  as  given,  or  as  computed  by  the  weighted 
average  of  the  detailed  figures  given,  are  as  follows : 

INDUSTRIES  FOR  WHICH  DATA  ARE  AVAILABLE  FOR  1919 

For  male  workers  only.  In  all  but  three  industries  given,  women 
workers  bring  average  earnings  much  lower  than  these  stated. 

Averages  include  skilled,  semi-skilled  and  common  labor 

Full  Time 
Earnings 
Industry  Per  Week 

Boot  and  Shoe  Manufacturing $25.90 

Brick 25.52 

Chemicals 25.44 

Chemical  Manufacturing 26.20 


24       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Confectionery $19.19 

Cotton  Manufacttiring 17.10 

Furniture 20.55 

Glass 24.46 

Hosiery  and  Underwear 24.66 

Leather 26.14 

Lumber 20.03 

Metal  Manufacturing 24.75 

Mill  Work 20.36 

Overalls 27.24 

Paper 27.23 

Paper  Boxes 19-75 

Paper  Manufacturing 22.40 

Pottery 32.04 

Pulp 22.70 

Rubber 27.62 

Rubber  Manufacturing 29.35 

Silk 23.55 

Silk  Manufacturing 22.69 

Women's  Clothing  (no  common  labor  included) 36.72 

Wool  Manufacturing 18.61 

Combined  Average  (weighted  and  computed  by  Haskins  and 

Sells) 24.35 

All  these  elaborate  wage  statistics  taken  from  the  Inter- 
church  Report's  own  authority,  show,  just  as  did  the  Inter- 
church  Report's  own  figures — which  it  publishes  in  its 
Appendix  but  omits  to  consider  in  its  argimient  and  con- 
clusions— that  steel  wages  are  not  only  higher  but  higher 
out  of  all  proportion  than  wages  in  any  other  industry  given. 
Out  of  the  87  occupations  of  the  17  industries  for  which 
detailed  figures  are  given,  (in  addition  to  the  unspecified 
occupations  for  the  8  industries  for  which  only  average 
figures  are  given)  in  these  last  chapters  of  Bulletin  Number  8, 
only  one  skilled  occupation  (Pottery  kiln  placers — earnings 
$43.49)  comes  within  $10  a  week  of  earning  as  much  as  the 
$51.74  average  earnings  of  all  semi-skilled  as  well  as  skilled 
steel  workers.  The  great  majority  of  the  skilled  workers 
in  all  the  occupations  given  earn  at  least  $15  per  week  less 
and  great  groups  of  them  earn  $20  less  than  the  average 
earnings  of  all  semi-skilled  as  well  as  skilled  steel  workers. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        25 

Except  for  the  Women's  Clothing  industry — whose 
earnings  of  $36.72  include  no  common  labor  and  do  not 
consider  the  greater  part  of  the  employees  in  the  industry 
who  are  women  workers  earning  from  $15  to  $21  a  week — 
and  except  for  the  Pottery  industry — ^whose  earnings  of 
$32.04  do  not  include  the  greatest  proportion  of  the  workers 
who  are  also  women  earning  in  general  $i5or$i6a  week — 
there  is  no  other  one  of  the  25  industries  given  whose 
average  earnings  for  all  workers  is  within  $15  a  week  as 
high  as  the  $46.78  average  earnings  of  all  iron  and  steel 
workers. 

But  again  perhaps  the  most  interesting  fact  thus  shown 
in  regard  to  iron  and  steel  earnings  is  that  except  for  women's 
clothing  where  the  figures  do  not  include  any  common  labor 
and  none  of  the  largest  proportion  of  lowest  paid  workers 
in  the  industry,  there  is  not  a  single  industry  here  given 
whose  average  earnings  for  all  workers  including  skilled  and 
semi-skilled,  are  as  high  as  the  earnings  of  steel  common 
labor  and  steel  common  labor  earnings  were  $10  a  week 
higher  than  the  average  earnings  of  all  workers  in  all  these 
industries. 

Turning  from  wage  statistics  given  by  the  Inter- 
church  Report  itself — but  only  in  its  Appendix — or 
by  its  own  stated  authority,  to  other  authorities,  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  in  its  monthly  Labor 
Review  for  June,  1920,  reports  on  pages  83  to  95  the 
results  of  its  study  as  to  wages  in  the  Automobile,  Freight 
Car,  Electrical  Apparatus,  Foundry,  Machinery,  Machine 
Tool  and  Typewriter  industries,  all  industries  whose  labor 
is  predominantly  high  class,  high  skilled.  The  figures  pub- 
lished are  from  actual  pay  rolls  for  months  from  September, 
19 1 8,  to  May,  19 19.  They  are  weighted  averages  of  actual 
earnings  and  so  can  be  exactly  compared  with  figures  for 
steel  and  other  industries  already  given. 

This  U.S.  bulletin  shows  that  of  all  the  highly  skilled  labor 
employed  in  the  Automobile  industry  only  four  classes  of 
skilled  labor  received  as  much  as  unskilled  labor  in  the  Steel 


26       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

industry  and  that  all  classes  in  this  highly  skilled  industry 
averaged  $28.22  per  week  or  $6.00  less  than  the  lowest  paid, 
unskilled  steel  workers. 

All  workers  in  car  manufacturing  plants,  also  including  an 
especially  high  per  cent  of  skilled  men  average  $27.98  per 
week  or  over  $6.00  less  than  mere  unskilled  steel  workers. 

Makers  of  electrical  apparatus  are  preponderately  skilled 
workers,  yet  only  two  groups  were  paid  as  high  as  unskilled 
steel  workers,  and  all  workers  averaged  $9.00  less  a  week 
than  the  lowest  paid  steel  workers.  Similarly  all  makers 
of  machinery  averaged  $6.00  a  week  less,  all  makers  of 
machine  tools  $6.00  a  week  less,  and  all  makers  of  type- 
writers $8.00  less  than  steel  common  labor. 

Judge  Gary,  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
largest  unit  in  the  steel  industry,  testified  before  the  Senate 
Committee  investigating  the  steel  strike : 

"  I  wish  to  state  Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  that  there  is  no  basic 
industry  in  this  country,  nor  in  the  world,  in  my  opinion,  which  has 
paid  larger  wages  to  its  employees  than  the  United  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration."    (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  147.) 

To  this  general  statement.  Judge  Gary  later  added  (pages 
156-158)  detailed  statements  as  to  average  wages. 

Finally  Mr.  John  Fitzpatrick,  Chairman  of  the  Special 
Strike  Committee,  testified  before  the  Senate  Committee 
during  the  strike  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  74,  line 
46): 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  "We,  or  at  least  I,  understood  that  the  percentage 
of  increase  of  the  wages  of  the  steel  industry  was  even  higher  than  that." 

Senator  Wolcott:  "Higher  than  iii  per  cent.?" 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  "Yes.  But  it  is  not  a  question  of  wages.  The 
steel  industry  of  course  came  up  with  the  wages. " 

Yet  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  steel  strike  says: 

"  That  steel  common  labor  has  the  lowest  rate  of  pay  of  the  trades  for 
which  there  are  separate  statistics  for  laborers. "  (In  italics  page  102 — 
line  23.) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        27 

"  In  1919  the  unskilled  (steel)  workers'  annual  earnings  were  more  than 
$109  below  the  minimum  subsistence  level  and  more  than  $558  below 
the  American  standard  of  living, "  (page  94 — line  8), 

"The  bulk  of  unskilled  steel  labor  earned  less  than  enough  for  the 
average  family's  minimum  subsistence"  (page  13 — line  3). 

"  The  annual  earnings  of  72%  of  all  (steel)  workers  were  and  had  been 
for  years  below  the  level  set  by  government  experts  as  the  minimum  of 
comfort  level  for  families  of  five"  (page  12 — line  32). 

In  other  words  whereas  the  United  States  government 
statistics  and  all  other  authoritative  available  data,  show 
definitely  that  all  steel  workers  were  paid  far  higher  wages 
than  similar  workers  in  any  other  industry  and  that  steel 
common  labor  actually  received  from  50  to  100%  more  than 
average  American  common  labor,  the  Interchurch  Report 
by  definite  statement  and  by  constant  repetition  and  itali- 
cizing, attempts  to  deny  these  statements  and  constantly 
states  and  insinuates  that  steel  labor  is  not  only  the  poor- 
est paid  in  industry  but  is  not  paid  enough  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together. 

In  view  of  this  definite  and  sweeping  contradiction  of 
what  has  always  been  heretofore  regarded  as  evidence  of 
the  highest  authority,  the  question  naturally  arises  as  to 
what  previously  unknown  evidence  the  Interchurch  In- 
vestigators have  discovered  or  what  special  methods  of 
analysis  they  have  employed  which  thus  proves  that  all  our 
government  statistics  and  leading  students  and  economists 
have  for  years  been  entirely  wrong  in  their  belief  that  steel 
labor  is  the  highest  paid,  and  which  justifies  the  Interchurch 
Investigators  in  the  opposite  conclusion  that  steel  workers 
are  the  poorest  paid  in  industry. 

The  Interchurch  Report,  as  has  been  remarked,  entirely 
omits  any  mention  or  consideration  in  its  wage  arguments 
of  the  official  figures  of  the  U.  S.  Government  as  to  wages  in 
the  steel  industry,  although  it  publishes  them  in  detail  in 
its  appendix  and  discusses  the  tables  of  which  they  are  a 
part  constantly  and  in  detail  in  its  discussion  of  steel  work- 
ing hours.    It  does  not  mention  or  consider  the  voluminous 


28         REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

wage  studies  of  the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  although 
it  specifically  mentions  this  organization  as  one  of  the  au- 
thorities which  furnished  "technical  data"  for  the  Report. 

It  does  however  print  in  some  detail  (pages  87  and  88) 
Judge  Gary's  public  statements  as  to  wages  and  his  figures 
taken  from  the  books  of  the  steel  company,  not  however  in 
any  attempt  to  analyze  or  refute  them,  but  merely  to  at- 
tempt to  cast  insinuations  and  slurs  as  to  their  being  a 
source  of  "popular  illusion." 

Aside  from  such  continued  attempts  at  argument  through 
insinuation  and  sarcasm  the  Interchurch  Steel  Report  at- 
tempts to  disprove  what  it  calls  the  "popular  illusion  that 
steel  is  a  highly  paid  industry"  in  three  ways: 

These  three  distinct  and  different  types  of  argument  are 
not  however  distinctly  organized  but  on  the  contrary  are 
rather  inextricably  mixed.  The  whole  Interchurch  argu- 
ment as  to  wages  begins  with  a  premise  which  is  not  de- 
veloped until  after  a  second  argument  has  been  well  begun 
and  the  conclusions  to  each,  which  are  quite  different,  are 
used  or  combined  quite  indiscriminately  in  each  further 
argument. 

The  argument  in  regard  to  annual  wages  that  is  begun 
second  but  finished  first  undoubtedly  merits  first  attention. 

The  argimient  in  regard  to  wages  per  hour  which  is  begun 
first  and  concluded  last  will  be  considered  second. 

The  third  argument  here  considered,  that  in  regard  to  the 
relation  between  wages  and  estimated  living  costs,  is  the  one 
to  which  the  Interchurch  Report  gives  most  space  and  whose 
conclusions  are  most  strongly  and  frequently  emphasized. 


CHAPTER  IV 

INTERCHURCH    ARGUMENTS    AS    TO    ANNUAL    STEEL    WAGES 

The  first  argument  the  Interchurch  Report  advances 
in  regard  to  steel  wages  consists  of  an  attempt  to  estimate 
the  average  earnings  of  different  classes  of  steel  employees 
on  an  annual  basis. 

There  can,  of  course,  be  no  question  of  the  average  wage 
of  steel  employees  on  a  full  time  daily  or  weekly  basis. 
The  Appendix  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  quoting  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  gives  the  wages  of  Common  labor 
as  $34.19  a  week.  On  page  267  of  the  Appendix  the  Inter- 
church Report  itself  gives  a  table  of  figures  (from  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor)  which  seeks  chiefly  to  emphasize  the  ntim- 
ber  of  working  hours  but  which  states  incidentally  (but  never 
uses  these  figures  in  the  main  argument)  that  the  "earnings 
per  full  week  for  common  labor  (iron  and  steel  industry)  was 
in  1919  $37.34"  for  the  "  Pittsburg  District." 

It  is  a  matter  of  the  commonest  knowledge  that  at  least 
during  19 17  and  191 8  and  1919  the  steel  industry  was 
working  at  capacity.  The  Interchurch  Report  itself  spends 
the  whole  of  Chapter  III  emphasizing,  and  emphasizes 
repeatedly  in  many  other  sections,  that  "the  steel  industry 
was  speeded  up  in  every  direction"  (page  55,  line  11). 
It  specifically  states,  in  its  table  on  page  71,  that  common 
labor  for  the  whole  steel  industry  averaged  74  hours  a  week — 
more  than  12  hours  a  day — in  191 9.  The  Report  fiirther 
states  that  approximately  one  half  of  all  steel  workers  were 
subject  to  the  12-hour  day  and  that  one  half  the  12-hour 

29 


30       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

workers  were  subject  to  the  seven-day  week  (page  ii, 
Sec.  7) — that  the  workers  only  get  a  Sunday  off  once  in  6 
months  (page  71 — line  i) — and  in  general  emphasizes  what 
is  common  knowledge  that  the  steel  industry  during  this 
period  worked  at  least  full  time. 

With  these  facts  as  to  the  amount  of  time  worked  a 
matter  of  general  knowledge  and  of  special  complaint  by  the 
Interchurch  Report,  and  with  earnings  per  full  time  week 
given  definitely  by  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  as  $34.19, 
the  obvious  way  to  arrive  at  the  average  annual  earnings  of 
the  steel  laborer  is  the  simple  one  of  multiplying  weeks 
worked  by  earnings  per  week.  ^ 

If  we  multiply  the  average  weekly  earnings  of  the  12  hour 
common  laborer  in  the  steel  industry  as  given  by  the  Inter- 
church Appendix  by  50  weeks,  which  allows  each  worker 
a  two  weeks'  vacation  each  year,  the  average  annual  earnings 
of  common  labor  is  $i70Q.S0. 

If  on  the  other  hand  we  use  the  Interchurch  figures  from 
the  appendix  (page  267)  of  $37-34  a  week  and  multiply  that 

'In  regard  to  the  multiplication  of  the  hourly  earnings  by  hour': 
worked  as  a  means  of  determining  earnings,  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
statistics  October,  19 19,  ha'S  itself  (page  105)  issued  the  following 
warning : 

"When  the  rate  of  earnings  per  hour  of  an  employee  has  been  in- 
creased by  the  addition  to  his  regular  earnings  of  extra  pay  for  overtime 
or  a  bonus,  it  becomes  impossible  to  compute  full  time  earnings  by  the 
simple  method  of  multiplying  full  time  hours  by  hourly  earnings."  In 
other  words,  the  rate  for  instance  of  46.4^  an  hour,  given  as  full  time 
hourly  earnings  for  common  labor  is  made  up  on  the  basis  of  straight 
time  for  8  hours  work  and  time  and  a  half  for  the  additional  four  hours 
work  of  the  12-hour  day.  The  12-hour  worker  therefore  received  12 
times  this  46.4^  hourly  rate  per  day.  The  worker  whose  full  time 
however  is  10  hours  did  not  receive  10  times  46.4}5  per  day  because 
his  hourly  wage  rate  was  based  on  straight  time  for  8  hours  and  time  and 
a  half  for  only  2  hours.  In  all  original  computations  in  the  present 
analysis  this  fact  has  been  carefully  allowed  for.  In  the  present  instance 
the  wage  figures  used  are  not  on  an  hourly  basis  but  are  the  full  time 
weekly  earnings  as  specifically  stated  by  the  Interchurch  Report  itself, 
or  to  make  possible  exact  comparison,  weekly  earnings  computed  on 
the  same  basis. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         31 

by  50  weeks,  still  giving  the  worker  a  two  weeks'  vacation 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  insists  he  didn't  get,  the 
average  annual  earnings  of  common  labor  is  $1867  a  year. 

Judge  Gary  states  that  the  average  wage  paid  all  common 
labor  on  the  12  -hour  basis  was  $5.88  a  day.  If  we  multiply 
this  by  300  days  a  year  which  gives  each  such  laborer  all  his 
Sundays  and  more  than  all  regular  holidays  off,  his  wage  is 
$1764  a  year. 

The  lowest  "average  earnings  per  hour''  shown  by  the 
elaborate  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  October,  1919, 
figures  as  to  steel  wages — the  authority  from  which  the 
Interchurch  Reports  own  Appendix  figures  and  the  Bureau 
of  Applied  Economics  figures  are  both  taken — for  any  class 
of  steel  workers  for  the  entire  country  is  44. 9J^  an  hour  for 
68.8  hours  a  week  worked  by  common  labor  in  the  Plate 
Mill.  Plate  Mill  common  labor  therefore  received  $30.89' 
per  week  of  5^  12-hour  days  or  six  11.5-hour  days  which  is 
$1606.28  per  year. 

The  lowest  paid  common  labor  for  the  entire  industry 
shown  by  these  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  is  161  laborers 
in  Sheet  Mills  whose  earnings  were  46^  an  hour  for  an  aver- 
age of  66.5  hours  a  week.  This  is  $30.59'  a  week  or  $1590.69 
a  year.  The  lowest  paid  steel  workers  of  any  class  shown  by 
these  Government  statistics  for  the  whole  industry,  were 
186  Sheet  Mill  Openers,  semi-skilled,  whose  earnings  were 
68. 5{^  an  hour  for  a  44-hour  week.  This  means  that  these 
workers  received  $30.14'  a  week  or  $1567.28  a  year — but 
this  is  for  an  8-hour  day  5  J^  days  a  week. 

As  has  been  emphasized,  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not 
use  or  mention  in  its  wage  argument  these  figures  for  the 
whole  country  which  it  itself  publishes  in  its  Appendix  and 
states  are  from  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics. 

Although  it  had  spent  the  whole  previous  chapter  in 
emphasizing  how  "the  steel  industry  was  speeded  up  in 
every  direction"  diiring  this  period,  it  dismisses  in  a  single 
brief  sentence  the  obvious  method  of  arriving  at  at  least 

'  Computed  on  same  basis  as  Interchurch  figures  above. 


32       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

approximate  annual  earnings  by  multiplying  given  weekly 
earnings  by  approximately  full  time. 

At  the  bottom  of  page  98  the  Interchurch  Report  gives  a 
table  of  weekly  earnings  for  an  individual  "Open  Hearth 
gang."  These  earnings  for  the  common  laborers  among 
this  "gang"  are  stated  as  $35.28  a  week — substantially 
the  same  as  the  average  for  the  country  ($34.19)  given  in 
the  Appendix.  Following  this  table  it  states  in  italics,  as 
indicated^: 

"  ...  if  the  cx)mmon  laborers  who  make  up  49  per  cent,  of  Open 
Hearth  employees,  worked  this  12-hour  schedule  for  all  but  26  of  the 
365  days  in  the  year,  they  would  still  be  nearly  $200  below  the  lowest 
'  American  standard. ' ' ' 

The  Interchurch  Report  frequently,  through  the  pre- 
ceding pages,  defines  the  "lowest  American  standard"  of 
living  as  $2024  a  year.  $200  less  than  this  is  $1824  a  year. 
$35.28  weekly  (the  stated  earnings  of  common  labor  in  this 
particular  "Open  Hearth  gang")  multiplied  by  52  weeks  is 
$1834.56.  Thus — although  entirely  indirectly — the  Inter- 
church Report  admits  that  12-hour  common  labor  which 
worked  full  time  earned  $1800  a  year.  But  immediately 
after  this  indirect  admission,  it  hastens  to  add, 

"But  few  men  can  stand  it  and  few  plants  run  without  a  lay-oflf, — 
many  are  'down'  from  8  to  20  weeks  a  year,  and  the  year's  earnings  are 
never  'full  time.'" 

Therefore  the  Interchurch  Report  concludes,  and  empha- 
sizes on  page  92  and  repeats  on  pages  93,94, 97  and  elsewhere, 
that  steel  common  labor  received  "under  $1466  a  year." 

Of  course  individual  steel  workers  lay  off  for  sickness  or 
other  reasons  just  as  do  workers  in  any  other  industry.  Of 
course  machinery,  no  matter  how  busy,  must  sometimes 
stop  to  be  repaired.  But  as  has  already  been  shown,  65 
days  a  year  may  be  allowed  for  such  causes  and  still  the  12- 
hour  workers  who  worked  300  days  a  year  at  $5.88  a  day — 

'  This  table  shows  plainly  on  its  face  a  working  schedule  of  6  days  a 
week  yet  the  Interchurch  Report  presumes  in  the  next  paragraph  to 
use  this  table  as  evidence  of  7-day  work. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        33 

the  average  daily  earnings  for  12-hour  common  labor  given 
by  Judge  Gary  and  which  multiplied  by  6  days  gives  $35.28, 
exactly  the  weekly  earnings  of  the  "Open  Hearth  gang"  as 
given  by  the  Interchurch  Report — would  receive  $1764  a 
year. 

But  the  shut  down  of  "many  plants"  of  "from  8  to  20 
weeks  "  which  the  Interchurch  Report  specifically  mentions, 
although  it  adduces  no  evidence  to  support  this  allegation, 
means  a  loss  of  far  more  than  65  days  a  year.  An  annual 
wage  for  all  common  labor  of  "under  $1466  a  year"  when 
the  given  wage  is  $34.19  a  week,  if  true,  shows  that  the 
whole  steel  industry  which  was  supposed  to  be  operating  at 
full-blast  through  all  this  period  did  not  actually  so  operate 
an  average  of  more  than  268  days  a  year.  This  is  so  entirely 
contrary  to  all  general  evidence  and  beliefs  as  to  the  opera- 
tion of  the  steel  industry  during  this  whole  period  as  to 
make  an  analysis  of  the  argument  by  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  presumes  to  reach  such  conclusions  extremely 
pertinent. 

All  the  figures  and  computations  on  this  point  as  far  as 
they  are  given,  are  as  follows  (pages  91  and  92) : 

"In  1919  the  Corporations  wage  and  salary  budget  [$255,861,264  for 
eight  months]  went  to  1 9 1 ,000  employees  as  follows : 

[eight  months'  budget  multiplied  by  50  per  cent'  for  an  annual  basis] 
58,064  skilled  [30.4%  of  all]  got  41.6%  or  $159,657,328 

60,165  semi-skilled  [31.5%  of  all]  got  30.6%  or  117,440,320 

72,771  unskilled  [38.1%  of  all]  got  27.8%  or  106,694,145 

(191,000)  ($383,791,793) 

That  is  individual  average  earnings  were  not  higher  than  as  follows 
since  the  above  totals  contain  administrative  salaries: 

In  1919: 

Skilled  annual  average  earnings  averaged  under  $2749 

Semi-skilled  annual  earnings  averaged  under  1952 

Unskilled  annual  earnings  averaged  under  1466. " 

'  Obviously  the  Interchurch  Report  means  50%  added  to  the  figiires 
for  8  months;  that  is  how  it  has  actually  made  the  calculations. 

3 


34       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

It  is  at  once  apparent  that  the  basic  figure  on  which  this 
whole  computation  rests  is  the  $255,861,264  alleged  wage 
and  salary  budget  for  8  months  and  the  complementary 
figure  $383,791,793  as  the  wage  and  salary  budget  for  the 
year.  The  annual  report  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  does 
not  give  either  figure  or  any  similar  figure  and  the  Inter- 
church  Report  gives  no  authority  for  these  figures.  If  this 
Interchurch  Report  figure  is  not  accurate  all  the  figures  are 
correspondingly  inaccurate. 

Again  the  Interchurch  Report  divides  this  alleged  annual 
wage  budget  by  191,000  employees.  But  this  is  the  number 
of  employees  in  one  month  and  is  2450  higher  than  the 
average  for  the  year  as  given  by  the  i8th  Annual  Report 
page  23.  The  average  annual  wage  of  all  steel  workers 
therefore  of  $2009  which  the  Interchurch  Report  derives 
from  these  figures  and  uses  on  pages  96,  97  and  elsewhere — 
and  all  the  other  averages  in  the  tables  above  quoted  are 
correspondingly  too  low. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  Interchurch  Report  table  states 
in  specific  and  exact  figures  that  in  1919,  30.4%  of  all  steel 
workers  were  skilled,  that  31.5%  were  semi-skilled  and 
38.1%  unskilled.  It  further  states  that  in  1919  the  skilled 
workers  got  41.6%  of  the  entire  wage  budget,  the  semi- 
skilled group  30.6%,  and  the  unskilled  27.8%.  It  also  uses 
exactly  the  same  percentages  for  its  191 8  calculations.  .In 
Appendix  C  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  the  Interchurch 
Report  explains  that  these  are  based  on  certain  1910  figures 
which  appear  on  page  80,  Volume  III  of  Senate  Document 
1 10.^ 

But  on  pages  134  and  135  the  Interchurch  Report  em- 
phasize at  length  the  great  extent  to  which  the  introduction 
of  modem  machinery  "has  revolutionized"  the  proportions 
of  skilled,  semi-skilled  and  unskilled  labor  in  the  industry. 

'  Senate  Document  no  throughout  merely  makes  this  classification 
according  to  rate  of  earnings.  The  Interchurch  Report  interprets  these 
figures  in  terms  of  skilled,  semi-skilled  and  common  labor.  (See  Appen- 
dix C.) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        35 

This  fact  alone,  of  the  known  change  in  steel  jobs — which 
the  Interchurch  Report  itself  elsewhere  takes  such  pains  to 
establish,  makes  it  obvious  that  these  1910  figures  not  only 
cannot  be  depended  upon  to  represent  191 9  conditions  but 
are  entirely  unrepresentative  of  191 9  conditions.  This 
much  is  obvious  on  the  face  of  the  situation.  Reference 
however  to  page  80,  Senate  Document  no  Volume  III,  from 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  states  it  derives  its  per- 
centages, immediately  reveals  the  fact  that  these  figures 
do  not  pretend  to  be  for  the  industry  as  a  whole  even  in 
1910  but  on  the  contrary  are  merely  for  one  particular 
plant  and  are  entirely  different  from  the  percentages  for 
the  industry  as  a  whole  which  are  given  in  Senate  Docu- 
ment no  on  pages  xxxi  and  xxxii.  There  it  is  shown 
that  in  19 10  skilled  labor  constituted  23.6%,  semi-skilled 
26.71%  and  unskilled  not  38.1%  but  4Q.6q%,  of  all  steel 
workers. 

The  Interchurch  Report  figures  show,  and  it  itself  states, 
that  the  average  wage  of  all  steel  workers  in  1 919  was  $2009. 
Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  larger  the  proportion  of  unskilled 
labor  the  more  nearly  must  the  earnings  of  such  workers 
approach  the  $2009  average  earnings  of  all  workers.  Even 
on  the  basis  of  the  actual  1910  figures  therefore,  the  fact  that 
the  Interchurch  Report  by  using  figures  for  a  single  plant 
instead  of  for  the  industry  as  a  whole  has  placed  the  pro- 
portion of  steel  common  labor  11.6%  too  low  mean  that  its 
$1466  is  correspondingly  too  low  even  if  all  its  other  calcula- 
tions were  sound.  But  as  has  been  pointed  out,  it  has  not 
only  based  this  whole  calculation  on  an  assumption  which 
it  itself  shows  elsewhere  is  untrue,  uses  as  a  basic  figure  in 
the  calculations  one  for  which  it  gives  no  authority,  but  has 
made  further  errors  of  calculation  all  of  which  have  worked 
in  the  same  direction. 

The  fact,  however,  that  the  Interchurch  Report's  conclu- 
sion that  steel  common  labor  earnings  were  under  $1466  is 
based  on  a  self-contradiction  and  a  multiplication  of  obvious 
errors,  is  less  important  perhaps  than  the  fact  that  by  this 


36      ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

conclusion,  the  whole  Interchurch  Report  is  placed  definitely 
and  conspicuously  in  this  dilemma  of  self-contradiction  as  to 
its  main  arguments. 

All  these  wage  calculations  are  made  without  reference 
to  the  strike.  There  was  of  course  no  strike  in  191 8  and  the 
1 91 8  and  191 9  calculations  are  made  on  exactly  the  same 
basis.  Moreover,  in  its  191 9  calculations,  the  Interchurch 
Report  specifically  bases  its  figures  on  the  first  8  months 
before  the  strike  adding  50%  to  these  so  that  any  change 
brought  about  by  the  strike  should  not  be  included.  Its 
figures  of  course  apply  not  to  individual  workers  but  to 
total  number  of  employees. 

If  then,  the  average  weekly  wage  of  all  steel  workers 
was  $46.78  as  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  plainly  states 
in  its  Appendix  on  page  265,  and  the  average  annual  wage 
of  all  steel  workers  was  under  $2009  a  year,  then  all  steel 
workers  worked  less  than  43  weeks  a  year  and  therefore  the 
whole  steel  industry  averaged  net  less  than  43  weeks  of 
operation  during  the  year. 

If  the  average  weekly  earnings  of  all  steel  companies 
common  labor  was  $34.19,  as  the  Interchurch  Report  also 
specifically  states  in  its  Appendix  on  page  265,  and  the 
annual  earnings  of  steel  common  labor  was  "under  $1466" 
then  the  average  steel  common  laborer  worked  under  43 
weeks  a  year  and  the  whole  steel  industry  averaged  under 
43  weeks  of  operation  during  the  year.  This  of  course  is 
entirely  in  keeping  with  the  Interchurch  Report's  statement 
on  page  99  that  "many  (plants)  are  'down'  from  8  to  20 
weeks  a  year." 

An  average  of  under  43  weeks  worked  for  all  steel  workers 
and  so  for  the  industry  means  that  the  7-day  worker — who 
the  Interchurch  Report  insists  approximated  25%  of  the 
industry — averaged  less  than  301  days  a  year  and  therefore 
had  over  64  days  a  year  off.  It  means  that  the  6-day  steel 
worker  who  must  therefore  have  constituted  75%  of  all 
workers — worked  under  258  days  a  year  and  had  over  107 
days  per  year  off.    It  means  that  all  steel  workers,  including 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         37 

both  6  and  7  day  workers  and  so  all  departments  of  the 
industry  averaged  only  268  days  net  out  of  the  year.  ^ 

But  such  conclusions  are  not  only  entirely  contrary  to  all 
evidence  and  information  as  to  steel  operation  during  the 
war  and  immediately  after  the  war  period,  but  are  entirely 
contrary  to  the  Interchurch  Report's  whole  argument 
throughout  and  particularly  in  its  chapter  on  the  12-hour 
day  in  which  it  insists  "that  the  steel  industry  was  (so) 
speeded  up  in  every  direction, "  not  merely  during  the  war — 
"  which  permitted  the  steel  companies  free  rein  as  regards 
hotu-s, "  but  right  into  the  "months  of  July,  August,  and  Sep- 
tember, 1919, "  that  while  "some  (workers)  got  a  Sunday  off 
perhaps  once  in  six  months  .  .  .  most  of  them  ...  do  not 
see  the  inside  of  a  church  more  than  once  in  six  months  be- 
cause they  are  forced  to  work  on  Sunday ' '  (pages  55  and  71) — 
that  not  merely  during  the  war  but  for  the  "8  months  and 
20  days  previous  to  the  strike"  i.e.  from  January  ist  to 
September  20,  I9i9,the  employees  of  a  certain  Homestead  de- 
partment only  got  17  days  off  out  of  244  (page  73)  etc.,  etc. 

Attention  is  also  called  to  the  fact  that  the  evidence  of 
these  important  errors  and  self-contradictions  does  not 
appear  in  the  main  argument  which  shows  merely  certain 
very  exact  looking  and  otherwise  impressive  partial  calcula- 
tions and  then  features -the  conclusions.  Only  a  careful 
study  of  the  Appendix,  which  is  not  referred  to  in  the  main 
argument,  reveals  the  fact  that,  and  the  way  that  the  Inter- 
church Report  in  this  connection  uses  as  the  whole  basis  of 
its  argument  an  assumption  which  it  strongly  denies  and 
states  to  the  contrary  as  the  basis  of  a  different  kind  of  an 
argument  in  a  different  connection.  The  other  flagrant 
errors  in  this  argument — the  fact  that  in  addition  to  using 
1 910  figures  as  representative  of  191 9  it  takes  the  1910 
figures  for  merely  one  "establishment"  which  happens  to 
be  useful  to  its  argument  and  ignores  the  very  different 
figures  for  the  whole  industry  which  refute  its  argument — 
are  only  discoverable  by  reference  to  original  sources.   Again 

*  See  foot  note  page  45. 


38         REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

although  the  table  showing  percentages  of  different  classes 
of  workers  for  the  whole  industry,  but  which  refute  the 
Interchurch  Report  conclusions,  appear  plainly  among  the 
main  tables  at  the  beginning  of  Senate  Document  iio^ 
a  section  to  which  the  Interchurch  Report  otherwise  fre- 
quently refers — it  passes  this  by  without  comment  and 
uses  an  obscure  table  for  a  single  establishment  from  the 
third  volume,  but  which  does  happen  to  suit  its  argument. 
All  such  facts  should  at  least  be  noted  and  borne  in  mind 
in  the  consideration  of  its  further  arguments. 


CHAPTER  V 

INTERCHURCH   ARGUMENT    AS    TO    STEEL   WAGES    PER   HOUR 

After  stating  at  length  its  various  conclusions  as  to  wages 
in  the  Steel  Industry  in  the  beginning  of  Chapter  IV,  the 
Interchurch  Report  opens  its  argument  to  substantiate 
these  conclusions  by  asserting  that  there  is  a  "popular  illu- 
sion that  steel  is  a  highly  paid  industry" — that  there  is  "a 
public  impression  that  steel  may  be  mighty  hard  labor  but 
its  wages  are  mighty  big."  The  Report  then  proceeds  in  all 
seriousness  to  prove  that  there  is  no  basis  for  such  a  public 
illusion  by  the  very  ingenious  line  of  reasoning  that  if  the  steel 
laborer  did  not  work  so  hard  his  wages  would  not  be  so  big. 

There  is  little  question  that  the  Interchurch  Report  is 
quite  correct  in  regard  to  the  existence  of  a  general  impres- 
sion that  the  public  has  gained  from  all  standard  sources  of 
information  that  the  steel  worker  does  work  hard  or  at  least 
long  and  does  make  good  pay.  And  there  would  be 
little  grounds  for  discussing  the  Report's  ingenious  argu- 
ment that  if  the  steel  worker  did  not  work  so  hard  (long) 
his  pay  would  not  be  so  big,  except  for  the  fact  that  through 
a  less  obvious,  ingenious  series  of  false  analogies,  the  Re- 
port presumes  to  lead  this  argtiment  to  such  conclusions  as : 

"Steel  common  labor  has  the  lowest  rate  of  pay  of  trades  for  which 
there  are  separate  statistics  for  laborers"  (in  italics  page  102,  line  23). 

"As  regards  common  labor  steel  is  a  low  wage  industry"  (page  90, 
line  21). 

"A  comparison  of  common  labor  earnings  of  steel  with  common  labor 
earnings  in  five  other  major  industries  in  the  Pittsburgh  district  .  .  .• 
on  the  basis  of  a  common  standard  week  shows  steel  labor  the  lowest 
paid  of  the  six  "  (page  90,  line  25). 

39 


40       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  point  was  emphasized  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
whereas  there  exist  ample  government  statistics  and  other 
authoritative  data  which  show  steel  earnings  plainly  and 
definitely,  the  Interchurch  Report  based  its  own  very  dif- 
ferent statements  as  to  general  wages  in  the  Steel  Industry 
on  a  complicated  compilation  of  partly  doubtful  and  partly 
undisclosed  figures  which  attempted  to  arrive  at  an  actual 
annual  wage  on  the  grounds  that  because  the  cost  of  living 
is  necessarily  on  an  annual  basis,  wages  can  only  be  fairly 
judged  on  the  same  basis  (page  98 — line  17). 

In  the  present  second  argtunent  also,  in  which  the  Inter- 
chiirch  Report  assumes  to  compare  steel  wages  with  wages 
in  other  industries,  the  Interchurch  Report  again  pointedly 
disregards  all  reference  to  standard  Government  figures, 
published  figures  of  the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  which 
it  states  was  one  of  its  technical  advisors  and  other  au- 
thoritative figures  as  to  such  comparative  wages,  and  uses 
figures  as  for  merely  the  Pittsburgh  district  which  authorita- 
tive data  seldom  specifically  mentions.  Moreover,  entirely 
reversing  its  former  attitude  of  insisting  that  steel  wages 
can  only  be  fairly  judged  on  an  annual  basis  because  living 
costs  have  to  be  reckoned  on  that  basis,  in  this  second  argu- 
ment, the  Interchurch  Report  not  only  insists  on  basing  its 
figures  on  an  artificial  and  untrue  weekly  basis  but  insists 
on  making  its  comparison  with  other  particular  industries 
where  weekly  earnings  are  least  representative  of  actual 
annual  earnings. 

The  hypothesis  of  this  argimient  is  that  if  steel  workers 
did  not  work  such  long  hours  they  would  be  poorly  paid 
rather  than  well-paid  workers.  The  alleged  evidence  it 
presents  to  justify  that  conclusion  and  the  statement  of 
that  conclusion  particularly  emphasized  in  italics  are  as 
follows: 

Table  from  Page  102,  Interchurch  Report 

"Comparative  earnings  for  44-hour  week  at  prevailing  hourly  rates 
(Pittsburgh  district  19 19): 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        41 

Common  Labor: 

Iron  and  Steel $21.12  (48    i  per  hour) 

Bitiuninous  Coal 25.30  (57.5^    "       " 

'Building  Trades: 

Building  Laborers $22.00  (50    ff  an  hotir) 

Hod  Carriers 30.80  (70    ^    "      " 

Plasterers'  Laborers 30.80  (70    i    "      " 

Average  for  Laborers 27.85 

"The  comparison  makes  it  plain  that  steel  common  labor  has  the 
lowest  rate  of  pay  of  the  trades  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for 
laborers. " 

On  analysis  this  table  and  its  conclusion  become  interest- 
ing from  a  number  of  points  of  view.  In  the  first  place, 
turning  to  pages  265-266  (Appendix)  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself,  it  is  plainly  stated  that  the  rates  per  hour 
as  well  as  per  week  for  common  labor  in  various  industries 
in  1 91 9  were  as  follows: 

Figures  for  Common  Labor  from  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  and  other 

Statistics  as  Published  in  Appendix  (pages  265-266) 

interchurch  report 

Earnings  Average 

Per  Fidl  Hourly 
Week  Rate 

Industry: 

Iron  and  Steel  (common  labor) $34.19  46.2ff 

Mining: 

Laborers  (anthracite) $26.90  5i-9f5 

Laborers  (bituminous) 29.90  57-5i 

U.  S.  Arsenals  (common  laborers) 22.08  46    ff 

Building  Trades  (common  labor) 22.88  52    i 

Navy  Yards  (common  labor) 21.36  44-5f^ 

Railroads: 


Section  Men 

Yard  Switch  Tenders'. 


Other  Yard  Employees . 


Engine  House  Men 

Other  Unskilled  Laborers . 


Earnings  37-2(5 

per  34.7^ 

week 

not  37.4^ 

stated 

42.3^ 
413^ 


Shipyards  (east)  Laborers $17.28  36    ^ 

'  Here  quoted  as  given  in  Interchurch  table.    Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  shows  different  classification  and  wage  rate. 


42       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Again,  taking  the  elaborate  wage  study  of  the  Bureau  of 
Applied  Economics,  and  going  through  that  study,  industry 
by  industry,  it  also  plainly  appears,,  according  to  this  au- 
thority which  is  stated  by  the  Interchurch  Report  to  be  one- 
of  its  own  authorities,  that  common  labor  earnings  per  hour 
as  well  as  per  week  for  the  various  industries  were  in  1919 
as  follows : 


Figures  from  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  Bulletin  Number  8. 


Industry 
Anthracite  Coal: 

Outside  Labor 

Inside  Labor 

Brick  Making 

Chemical , 

Confectionery  (male) .... 

Glass 

Lumber 

Mill  Work 

Paper  Box 

Pottery  (male) 


Class  I  Railroads': 

Section  Men 

Construction  Labor.  . . 

Station  Service  Labor. 

Yard  Switch  Tenders . 

Other  Yard  Labor .  .  .  . 

Other  Unskilled  Labor . 

Rubber  (Tire  M.) 

Rubber  (Other  Labor)  .  . 
Silk  (dye  house) 


Earnings 

Per  Full 

Week 

Average 
Earnings 
Per  Hour 

$21.27 

434Ji 

2543 

5i-9f5 

22.72 

42.3?5 

22.39 

39    i 

17.11 

ii.H 

20.71 

354^ 

19.23 

34-5j5 

16.69 

32.ijf 

18.24 

Z5-9i 

26.30 

47-9f^ 

earnings  or 

37-9f5 

number  of 

39.6^ 

hours 

4i.7f« 

per  week 

42.6f5 

not  given 

36.IJI 

40.9^ 

I27.67 

54-8jf 

20.94 

39-5>i 

22.01 

4I.4J5 

»  The  Interchtirch  Report's  conclusions  that, 

"  The  comparison  makes  it  plain  that  steel  common  labor  has  the  lowest 
rate  of  pay  for  the  trades  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for 
laborers," 

— is  sweeping  and  unqualified.  It  will  be  noted  however  that  pre- 
viously there  had  been  slipped  in,  in  parenthesis,  the  qualification, 
"Pittsburg  district."  The  Pittsburg  district  obviously  covers, — ^and 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  October,  1919,  Review,  page  104  in  the  introduc- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         43 

These  tables  quoted  from  official  figures  of  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  published  in  the  Appendix  of  the  Inter- 
church  Report  itself  and  from  the  figures  of  the  Bureau  of 
Applied  Economics,  specifically  accepted  by  the  Inter- 
church  Report  as  one  of  its  own  authorities,  show  that  there 
are  separate  statistics  for  labor  in  22  separate  trades  or  in- 
dustries or  occupations.  They  too  show  specifically  and  in 
detail,  as  all  other  competent  authorities  show,  that  without 
question  steel  common  labor  received  higher  wages  and  in 
general  far  higher  wages  hy  the  week,  than  any  other  com- 
mon labor  in  the  country.  But  these  tables  particularly 
show  specifically  and  in  detail  that  in  all  the  22  trades  or 
occupations  for  which  there  are  these  separate  statistics 
or  common  labor,  except  for  five — and  these  are  special 
cases  governed  by  very  special  circiunstances  as  will  be 
shown  later — steel  common  labor  received  the  highest 
wages  not  only  per  day  and  per  week  but  also  per  hour — 
that  it  received  10  or  12^  higher  wages  per  hour  than  was 
paid  to  common  labor  in  whole  groups  of  other  industries 
including  the  Pittsburg  district.  The  Interchurch  Table 
and  Conclusion  therefore  that,  "steel  common  labor  has 
the  lowest  rate  of  pay  of  the  trades  for  which  there  are  sepa- 

tion  to  its  study  of  steel  hours  and  wages  from  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  Appendix  chiefly  derives  its  wage  figures,  sjjecifically  states  it  to 
cover,  western  Pennsylvania,  eastern  Ohio,  and  northern  West  Virginia. 
With  a  few  exceptions,  all  the  22  separate  industries  or  trades  or  occupa- 
tions listed  in  the  2  tables  above  are  of  course  represented  in  the  "Pitts- 
burg district."  This  district  is  a  particular  center  of  railroading  and 
glass,  brick,  pottery  and  chemical  manufacturing.  Perhaps  the  largest 
paper  plants  in  the  country  and  the  country's  chief  center  of  rubber 
manufacture  are  in  this  district.  The  figures  given  above  for  all  these 
industries  are  obviously  therefore  also  for  the  Pittsburg  district.  This 
has  been  particularly  checked  in  the  case  of  the  widest  variety  of  com- 
mon labor  rates  given  for  any  one  industry — railroads;  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  having  furnished  the  author  with 
the  hourly  wage  rates  paid  different  classes  of  common  labor  "tn  the 
Pittsburg  district  in  JQ19."  These  rates  correspond  closely  class  by 
class  to  earnings  given  above  and  are  from  jji  to  8i  per  hour  lower 
than  the  admitted  hourly  rate  for  steel  common  labor. 


44       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

rate  statistics  for  laborers,"  is  not  only  utterly  and  ridicu- 
lously untrue  but  is  the  opposite  of  the  truth. 

From  the  point  of  view,  however ,  of  an  analysis  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  the  fact  that  this  important  and 
specially  emphasized  conclusion  is  utterly  untrue  is  perhaps 
the  least  important  fact  that  a  careful  analysis  of  the  table 
and  its  conclusion  actually  shows. 

There  are  in  these  22  trades  or  occupations  for  which 
there  are  separate  statistics  for  common  labor  five  in  which 
the  earnings  per  hour — but  not  per  day  or  week — was 
higher  than  the  earnings  per  hour  in  the  steel  industry. 
The  pottery  industry  paid  male  common  labor  in  19 19  a 
fraction  of  one  cent  less  per  hour  than  was  paid  steel  com- 
mon labor  in  the  Pittsburg  district  but  throughout  the 
country  it  paid  a  little  over  i  cent  more  per  hour  than  was 
paid  in  the  steel  industry  throughout  the  country.  Common 
labor  in  the  Rubber  industry  as  a  whole  earned  39. 5{^  an 
hour — 7j^  less  than  steel  common  labor.  But  one  group  in 
tire  making  plants,  consisting  partly  of  common  labor  and 
partly  of ' '  helpers  "  which  are  low  semi-skilled,  received  more 
per  hour  than  steel  common  labor.  Aside  from  these,  the 
only  common  labor  thus  rated  as  receiving  a  higher  rate  per 
hour  than  steel  common  labor  was  the  inside  coal  labor — the 
outside  coal  labor  received  2}/^^  an  hour  less  than  the  steel 
laborer — and  the  laborer  in  the  building  trades. 

Now  it  is  distinctly  shown  by  the  Interchurch  Report's  own 
statistics  that  while  the  inside  coal  common  labor  and  the 
building  trade  common  labor  receive  a  higher  wage  per 
hour  than  the  steel  laborer,  they  actually  receive  far  less 
money  per  day  or  per  week  because  of  their  shorter  hours  per 
day.  But  what  is  far  more  significant  in  connection  with 
a  wage  comparison  in  these  industries  is  the  fact  that  the  coal 
industry  and  the  building  trades  are  highly  seasonal  and 
therefore  can  give  their  workers  work  only  part  of  the  time. 
For  while  steel  is  essentially  a  continuous  industry  which 
over  a  long  period  of  years  has  probably  given  its  workers 
a  higher  average  number  of  days  work  per  year  than  any 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        45 

other  industry  in  the  country, '  and  while  especially  during 
this  whole  period  under  discussion  the  steel  worker  was 
working  maximum  time,  the  bituminous  coal  miner  in  1919 
worked  only  191  days  and  for  many  years  has  rarely  been 
able  to  work  as  much  as  200  days  a  year.  In  the  same  way 
because  of  seasonal  conditions  building  operations  are  often 
not  possible  during  more  than  150  days  of  the  year  and  it  is 
probably  rare  for  the  building  laboffer  to  average  200  days 
a  year  at  his  trade.  The  higher  wage  rates  per  hour  there- 
fore in  these  seasonal  occupations  of  mining  and  building 
are  paid  fundamentally  for  the  reason  that  these  industries 
can  give  labor  only  limited  employment  so  that  during  the 
rest  of  the  year  such  workers  must  go  without  employment 
or  shift  for  themselves. 

Now  the  first  thing  to  be  noticed  in  regard  to  the  Inter- 
church  Report  table  on  page  1O2  which  presumes  to  justify 
the  italicized  statement  that  steel  common  labor  wage 
rates  are  the  lowest  for  all  trades  for  which  there  are  sepa- 
rate statistics,  is  that  it  entirely  fails  to  mention  or  consider 
the  18  other  trades  or  occupations  which  its  own  authori- 
ties plainly  show,  by  separate  statistics  for  common  labor, 
paid  lower  wages  per  hour  than  the  steel  industry,  and  uses 
for  comparison  with  steel  only  the  coal  industry  and  the 
building  trades  which  chiefly  because  of  the  general  seasonal 
nature  of  the  employment,  pay  a  higher  wage  rate  per  hour 
than  the  steel  industry. 

But  this  fact — that  the  Interchurch  Report  thus  carefully 
handpicks  out  of  a  long  list  of  trades  for  which  separate 
statistics  for  common  labor  are  plainly  given,  the  only  two 

'  During  the  first  half  of  the  past  decade  (1911-1915)  the  average 
number  of  U.  S.  Steel  Manufacturing  employees  was  147,932.  During 
this  period  the  country  went  through  a  great  industrial  boom  followed 
by  a  severe  industrial  depression  with  widespread  unemployment,  yet 
the  average  number  of  such  U.  S.  Steel  employees  in  the  worst  year 
fell  only  11%  below  the  average  for  the  5  years.  In  the  last  half  of  the 
decade  (1916-1920)  the  average  number  of  such  employees  was  194,914 
and  in  no  one  of  these  years  did  the  average  vary  from  the  average  for 
the  period  as  much  as  4%. 


46       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

industries  which  could  possibly  even  be  made  to  appear  to 
justify  this  utteriy  false  conclusion,  and  the  fact  that  it 
thus  specifically  makes  the  absolutely  false  statement  that 
these  two  industries  are  the  only  trades  "for  which  there 
are  separate  statistics  for  common  labor" — constitutes  only 
the  first  way  in  which  the  table  is  flagrantly  manipulated 
and  falsified. 

Reference  to  the  Interchurch  Report's  own  table  will 
show  that  under  building  trades,  it  specifies  three  classes  of 
common  labor — common  labor  which  receives  $22.00  a 
week  of  44  hours  or  50/  an  hour ;  hodcarriers  who  received 
$30.80  a  week  or  70/  an  hour;  and  plasterers'  laborers  who 
received  $30.80  a  week  or  70/  an  hour.  It  then  averages 
these  three  alleged  classes  of  common  labor  and  states  in 
its  fourth  line  that  the  " average  for  laborers"  in  the  build- 
ing trades  is  $27.85  a  week. 

But  it  is  a  matter  of  the  commonest  knowledge  to  anyone 
familiar  with  the  building  trades,  and  has  been  especially 
verified  for  the  present  purpose — first,  that  hodcarriers  and 
plasterers'  laborers  are  not  common  labor  at  all  but  highly 
semi-skilled  labor  who,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  generally  regard 
themselves  as  skilled  labor,  and  second,  that  they  are  not  two 
classes  of  labor  but  merely  two  different  names  for  exactly 
the  same  labor. 

Mr.  T.  E.  Rhodes  is  Vice  President  in  charge  of  construc- 
tion for  the  Frederick  French  Construction  Company  and 
his  extensive  building  experience  includes  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Mr.  Rhodes  states  in  writing  in  particular  refer- 
ence to  this  Interchurch  Table  that 

"Mason's  laborers  or  hodcarriers  or  plasterer?'  laborers  are  at  the 
summit  of  their  trade  and  are  skilled  or  semi-skilled  but  never  un- 
skilled. This  is  true  in  Pittsburg  and  in  all  cities  where  organized 
labor's  established  methods  exist. " 

In  the  same  connection,  Mr.  E.  M.  Tate,  Secretary  of  the 
Building  Construction  Employers'  Association  in  Pitts- 
burg, states  (letter  to  author  August  30,  192 1) : 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         47 

"Our  plasterers'  laborers  are  hodcarriers  and  they  are  considered 
semi-skilled,  .  .  .  Common  labor  .  .  .  has  nothing  to  do  with  making 
mortar  or  tending  the  mechanics  or  supplying  them  with  materials" 
which  is  the  particular  function  of  plasterers'  laborers  or  hodcarriers. 

In  other  words  not  only  is  the  Interchurch  Report's  whole 
table  grossly  falsified  in  that  its  conclusion  is  false  and  in 
that  it  seeks  to  justify  that  false  conclusion  by  hand-picking 
out  of  22  trades  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for 
common  labor  two  special  trades  and  representing  these  as 
the  only  trades  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for 
common  labor,  but  it  is  further  falsified  by  adding  in  semi- 
skilled labor  as  common  labor  and  also  by  counting  exactly 
the  same  semi-skilled  trade  twice  and  counting  all  the  other 
classifications  of  building  common  labor  only  once  in  order 
to  make  the  common  labor  wage  rate  seem  $6  a  week  higher 
than  it  actually  was. 

The  use  of  such  a  flagrantly  manipulated  and  falsified 
table  to  make  plausible  to  the  casual  reader  the  absolutely 
false  general  conclusion  which  follows  it  is  of  course — 
whether  deliberate  or  only  accidental — at  least  in  its  effect, 
precisely  equivalent  to  the  use  of  a  weighted  scale  or  loaded 
dice.^ 

'  When  this  and  other  similar  instances  of  the  use  of  manipulated  and 
falsified  figures  were  specifically  called  to  the  attention  of  certain  officials 
and  others  prominently  connected  with  the  Interchurch  Movement 
during  the  course  of  preparation  of  the  present  Analysis,  one  such 
gentleman  replied  in  substance:  "We  should  not  consider  the  Inter- 
church Report  from  the  point  of  view  of  mere  detailed  facts  and  figures. 
I  believe  the  Interchurch  Movement  was  called  of  God  to  challenge  the 
great  injustice  of  the  steel  industry.  We  know  that  God  moves  in 
mysterious  ways  and  it  is  not  for  us,  with  our  mere  finite  minds,  to  ques- 
tion the  Infinite."  Professor  Josiah  Royce  once  replied  to  a  similar 
argument,  "I  know  that  all  beings,  if  only  they  can  count,  must  find 
that  three  and  two  make  five.  Perhaps  the  angels  cannot  count;  but 
if  they  can,  this  axiom  i5  true  for  them.  If  I  met  an  angel  who  declared 
that  his  experience  had  occasionally  shown  him  a  three  and  a  two  that 
did  not  make  five,  I  should  know  at  once  what  sort  of  an  angel  he  was. " 


CHAPTER  VI 

INTERCHURCH   ARGUMENTS  AS  TO  THE    RELATION  BETWEEN 
STEEL  WAGES  AND  LIVING  COSTS 

Among  all  classes  of  Americans,  our  modern  American 
standard  of  living  has  been  achieved  and  is  maintained  be- 
cause under  our  modern  industrial  and  commercial  system 
two  members  of  each  average  family  can  and  do  contribute 
to  the  family  income.  This  fact  is  the  basis  of  our  modern 
American  spending  and  enjoying  power.  It  is  the  basis  of 
our  whole  industrial  and  social  and  commercial  organi- 
zation. 

The  third  argument  by  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
seeks  to  prove  steel  wages  low  and  on  which  throughout  the 
wage  discussion  it  puts  most  emphasis  is  the  argument  that 
the  wages  of  one  common  laborer  in  the  steel  industry  is  not 
quite  sufficient  to  maintain  a  standard  of  living  for  his  family 
which,  in  all  other  industries  in  the  country  as  a  whole,  it 
requires  the  wages  of  two  workers  to  maintain. 

In  the  13th  United  States  Census  Report,  Vol.  IV,  pages 
30  and  31  are  devoted  to  detailed  facts  and  tables  as  to  the 
distribution  of  wage  earners.  These  show  that  41.5%  of 
our  entire  population  is  engaged  in  gainful  occupation — ^that 
is,  works  for  wages  or  profits. 

These  same  U.  S.  Government  statistics  show  that  the 
average  family  throughout  the  country  consists  of  4.5  in- 
dividuals. Of  this  average  family  of  4.5  persons,  1.868 
persons  work  for  wages  or  profits. 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  steel  strike  for  conveni- 

48 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         49 

ence  sake,  as  is  frequently  done,  uses  5  persons  as  the  basis 
of  the  average  family.  According  to  these  U.  S.  Govern- 
ment statistics  therefore  2.075  members  of  each  such  family 
are  engaged  in  gainful  occupation  contributing  towards  the 
family's  support. 

These  are  average  figures  for  all  classes  for  the  whole 
country,  but  the  Census  Report  goes  on  to  say  on  page  31 : 

"  The  proportion  of  gainful  workers  in  the  population  usually  is  larger 
for  .  .  .  foreign  born  white  than  for  the  native  white  people,  for  urban 
than  for  rural  dwellers,  and  for  manufacturing  .  .  .  than  for  agricul- 
tural communities." 

Steel  workers  are  urban  dwellers — engaged  in  manufac- 
turing— and  at  least  the  unskilled  labor,  as  the  Interchurch 
Report  constantly  emphasizes,  largely  consists  of  foreign 
born  whites.  On  all  three  counts  then,  there  are  more  than 
2.075  members  per  average  family  of  five  steel  workers 
contributing  to  the  family  income. 

The  National  Bureau  of  Economic  Research  is  a  research 
organization  whose  directors  consist  of  such  gentlemen  as: 

Hugh  Frayne  "former  President  of  New  York  Federation  of 
Labor;  now  organizer  for  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  appointed  (as  director  of  the  National  Bureau 
of  Economic  Research)  by  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor." 

David  Friday,  "economist  .  .  .  appointed  by  the  American 
Economic  Association." 

Walter  R.  Ingalls,  Consulting  Engineer  and  President  of 
the  Metal  Statistical  Association  appointed  by  the 
Engineering  Council. 

/.  M.  Larkin,  "Assistant  to  the  President  of  the  Bethlehem 
Steel  Corporation,  appointed  by  the  Industrial  Rela- 
tions Association." 

The  Director  of  Research  is  Wesley  C.  Mitchell,  Ph.D., 
Professor  of  Economics  of  Coltunbia  University. 
Treasurer  of  the  New  School  of  Social  Research. 


50       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

This  Bureau  was  organized  for  the  express  purpose  of 
getting  together  basic  economic  facts  which  would  be  so  well 
founded  and  accurate  that  they  would  be  accepted  by 
authorities  of  such  widely  different  economic  belief  as  the 
above  directors. 

Professors  Wesley  C.  Mitchell,  Willford  I.  King,  Fred- 
erick R.  Macaulay  and  Oswald  W.  Knauth,  working  jointly 
and  under  the  auspices  of  this  Bureau  have  recently  pub- 
lished a  study  entitled,  "Income  in  the  United  States." 
Table  20  on  page  102  of  this  volume  shows  the  average 
earnings  of  workers  in  substantially  all  industry.  These 
figures  exclude  many  part-time  workers  and  include  pensions, 
accident  compensation,  sustenance,  etc.,  and  are  otherwise 
doubtless  as  high  as  can  be  justified. 

Average  Annual  Earnings  of  Employees  in  Agriculture, 

Mining,  Manufacturing,  Transportation,  Banking, 

Government  and  Other  Industries. 

1909 $626 

1910 656 

191 1 648 

1912 692 

1913 723 

1914-  •    •, 674 

1915 697 

1916 831 

1917 961 

1918 1078 

With  two  members  of  the  average  family  of  5  "gainfully 
employed ' '  the  average  family  income  would  thus  be  from 
some  $1252  a  year  in  1909  to  $2156  a  year  in  1918.  This 
latter  figure  is  about  what  the  average  individual  worker 
in  the  steel  industry  earned  in  1 9 1 9.  But  the  point  in  regard 
to  all  these  figures  is  that  they  show  on  the  basis  of  average 
individual  income  just  what  the  Census  states  on  the  basis 
of  nation  wide  investigation — that  throughout  the  country 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         51 

the  average  family  enjoys  "American"  standards  of  living 
because  two  members  contribute  towards  producing  the 
goods  and  service  which  go  to  make  up  the  American  stand- 
ard of  living  and  these  two  members  are  thereby  enabled  in 
turn  to  pay  for  the  goods  and  service  which  go  to  make  up 
the  American  standard  of  living. 

Yet  the  Interchurch  Report  through  page  after  page  of 
statistics  and  argimients  as  to  wages  and  family  living  bud- 
gets makes  no  mention  and  takes  no  account  whatever  of 
this  fact,  which  is  not  only  statistically  incontrovertible  but 
a  matter  of  commonest  knowledge;  that  among  every 
general  class  in  every  section  of  our  country  Americans 
enjoy  the  American  standard  of  living,  and  all  American 
commerce  and  industry  is  built  on  the  buying  and  enjoying 
power  of  American  standards  of  living,  because  two  mem- 
bers of  the  average  American  family  of  five  are  working  and 
producing  and  paying  for  that  standard  of  living. 

The  Interchurch  Report  sensationally  states  and  in  every 
section  constantly  repeats  and  re-emphasizes  that : 

"  The  annual  earnings  of  over  one  third  of  all  productive  iron  and  steel 
workers  were,  and  had  been  for  years,  below  the  level  set  by  govern- 
ment experts  as  the  minimum  of  subsistence.  .  .  .  The  bulk  of  semi- 
skilled workers  earned  less  than  enough  for  the  average  family's 
minimum  comfort"  (page  85 — line  6-21). 

"  In  19 19  the  unskilled  worker's  annual  earnings  were  more  than  $109. 
below  the  minimum  subsistence  level  and  more  than  $558.  below  the 
American  standard  of  living  "  (page  94 — line  12). 

Yet  in  face  of  this  simple  obvious  fact  of  more  than  one 
wage  earner  per  family,  all  these  argtunents  as  attempts  in 
themselves  to  prove  low  wages,  mean  absolutely  nothing, 
except  perhaps  a  strange  blindness  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
vestigators as  to  a  fact  which  must  be  of  the  commonest 
knowledge  to  them  in  their  own  personal  experience,  yet 
which  for  reasons  that  can  only  be  guessed  at,  they  com- 
pletely overlooked  as  a  factor  in  the  important  national 
question  under  their  investigation. 

The  Interchurch  Report  goes  into  great  detail  to  estab- 


52       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

lish  two  different  standards  of  living,  one  of  which  is  called 
the  "Standard  of  comfort"  level  and  the  other  "the  Stand- 
ard of  minimtim  subsistence"  level.  It  may  be  noted  in 
passing  that  the  costs  arrived  at  to  maintain  these  particu- 
lar standards  of  living  are  taken  chiefly  from  estimates 
which  were  based  on  prices  in  Washington,  D.  C,  and  New 
York  City — ^undoubtedly  the  two  single  cities  whose  general 
price  levels  have  been  the  highest  in  the  country.  Again 
the  basis  of  these  figures  was  the  estimated  needs  of  the 
family  of  a  clerk  in  government  service.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  there  is  a  distinct  difference  between  prices 
in  steel  communities  and  in  Washington  or  New  York ;  and 
also  a  distinct  difference  in  the  requirements  of  a  family  of  a 
steel  worker  and  that  of  a  Washington  clerk.  There  are 
many  other  obviously  questionable  factors  in  these  budgets 
but  these  are  only  details  as  compared  with  the  fundamental 
unsoundness  of  the  whole  argument  itself. 

The  U.  S.  Bureau  figures,  appearing  in  the  Appendix 
of  the  Interchurch  Report,  show  as  has  been  stated  that  for 
the  industries  there  given  common  labor  earnings  were  about 
$22.50  per  week.  The  figures  of  the  Bureau  of  Applied 
Economics,  the  Interchurch  Report's  own  authority,  show 
as  has  been  emphasized  that  average  weekly  earnings  for 
all  workers — including  skilled — for  25  leading  industries 
was  $24.35.  These  rates  were  for  the  more  developed  and 
organized  industries  whose  earnings  are  higher  than  aver- 
age. Yet  if  such  workers  worked  52  weeks  a  year,  which 
they  did  not,  they  would  only  earn  $1266.20 — over  $300 
below  what  the  Interchurch  Report  sets  as  the  subsistence 
level,  exactly  $200  further  below  than  the  Interchurch  Report 
even  claims  the  steel  common  laborer  is.  Yet  American  labor 
as  a  whole  seemed  to  subsist  pretty  well  during  this  period. 

The  official  speaker's  manual  of  the  Interchurch  Move- 
ment on  page27B  under  the  heading ' '  Talking  Points  "says : — 

"It  is  a  known  fact  that  steel  workers  receive  two  and  three  times  as 
much  as  ministers.  .  .  .  Day  laborers  receive  an  average  wage  much 
in  excess  of  the  amounts  paid  to  two  thirds  of  the  ministers." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         53 

Ministers  and  their  families  certainly  subsist.  It  is 
strange  that  the  investigators,  who  themselves  were,  or 
represented,  ministers,  should  not  recognize  that  something 
was  wrong  in  their  argument  that  steel  workers  cannot  sub- 
sist on  earning  two  or  three  times  as  high  as  ministers' 
salaries. 

Mr.  William  Z.  Foster,  Secretary-Treasurer  of  the  Labor 
Organization  that  had  charge  of  the  steel  strike,  in  his  book, 
The  Great  Steel  Strike  in  a  chapter  dealing  specifically  with 
the  living  problems  of  the  workers,  states : 

"The  fact  is  that  except  for  a  small  impoverished  minority  the  steel 
workers  made  their  long  hard  fight  virtually  upon  their  own  resources" 
(The  Great  Steel  Strike,  page  220 line  21). 

The  Interchurch  Report  states  frequently  that  the  bulk 
of  the  strikers  were  the  lowest  paid  workers,  who,  it  also 
states,  had  not  for  years  been  receiving  enough  wages  for 
mere  subsistence.  Yet  it  appears  not  only  obviously  on  the 
face  of  the  situation,  but  from  the  strike  leader's  own  state- 
ment, that  at  least  99%  of  these  very  workers,  whom  the 
Report  says  didn't  earn  enough  to  subsist  on,  actually  had 
enough  money  saved  up  to  support  themselves  and  the 
families  up  to  three  and  a  half  months  without  working.  ^ 

Again  on  page  244,  the  Interchurch  Report  itself,  in 
speaking  of  the  end  of  the  strike  says : 

"The  steel  worker  went  back  ...  to  earning  under  a  living  wage" 
and  then  in  line  28  on  same  page  ' '  began  piling  up  money  to  get  them- 
selves out  of  America. " 

Mr.  Foster,  the  strike  leader,  states  as  above  quoted, 
that  there  was,  as  is  of  course  always  inevitable,  "a  small 
impoverished  minority  among  the  steel  strikers."     The 

'The  strikers'  "Commissariat"  which  supported  this  "small  im- 
poverished minority"  during  the  strike  spent  $348,509.42  (Great  Steel 
Strike,  page  220).  Based  on  this  "minimum  of  subsistence"  figure  this 
would  have  supported  just  774  strikers'  families  for  the  15  weeks  of  the 
strike.  On  }/2  0T  }i  or  even  ^/^  0  subsistence  rations  this  could  only  have 
supported  at  most  a  few  thousand  strikers'  families. 


54         REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

Interchurch  Report  itself  states  that  "The  statements  and 
affidavits  of  500  steel  workers  (which  it  also  explains  included 
chiefly  representative  cross  sections  of  the  mass  of  unskilled 
foreigners)  constitute  the  rock  bottom  of  its  findings." 

Is  it  possible  that  these  500  workers  (out  of  the  total  of 
500,000  steel  workers)  whose  affidavits  "constitute  the  rock 
bottom  of  the  findings,"  (which  findings  includes  the  con- 
clusion that  the  steel  worker  "  cannot  subsist "  on  wages  two 
and  three  times  as  much  as  ministers'  salaries)  happen  by 
any  chance  to  have  somehow  consisted  chiefly  of  the  "small 
impoverished  minority"  which  Mr.  Foster  refers  to  as  en- 
tirely exceptional  to  the  great  mass  of  steel  workers  who  had 
seemingly  enough  saved  out  of  past  wages  to  support  their 
families  up  to  three  and  a  half  months  without  work  ? 

This  possibility,  that  its  "500  rock  bottom  affidavits" 
somehow  came  to  be  obtained  from  the  exceptional  im- 
poverished, rather  than  from  the  average  prosperous  steel 
worker  is  of  course  one  obviously  possible  explanation  as  to 
why  the  whole  Interchurch  Report  overlooked  the  simple 
fact  that  American  standards  of  living  are  universally  main- 
tained by  the  earnings  of  two  instead  of  one  member  per 
family — why  it  overlooked  the  fact  that  millions  of  Ameri- 
cans do  subsist  on  wages  far  lower  than  those  paid  in  the 
steel  industry — why  it  even  remained  blind  to  the  fact  that 
other  arguments  and  statements  in  its  own  Report  ipso 
facto  reduce  this  argument  to  an  absurdity. 

A  close  study  of  the  report,  however,  also  reveals  one 
other  possible  reason  why  this  line  of  argument  was  so 
blindly  persisted  in  and  so  especially  featured. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CHANGING  THE  WHOLE  PRESENT  BASIS  OF  AMERICAN  SOCIAL 
AND  ECONOMIC  ORGANIZATION 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  its  final  "Findings"  (page 
250)  recommends: 

"That  a  minimum  wage  commission  be  established  and  laws  enacted 
providing  for  an  American  standard  of  living  through  the  labor  of  the 
natural  bread  winner  permitting  the  mother  to  keep  up  a  good  home  and 
the  children  to  obtain  at  least  a  high  school  education. " 

No  one  questions  the  desirability  of  the  proposition  that 
every  American  family  should  have  ample  means  for  all  the 
necessities  and  comforts  of  life,  including  the  full,  free  edu- 
cation of  each  child.  Moreover,  the  proposition  of  at- 
tempting to  bring  about  such  a  highly  desirable  general 
condition  by  legislative  enactment  is  not  new. 

The  question  therefore  is  not  as  to  the  desirability  of  such 
a  condition  but  as  to  whether  or  not  such  a  condition  can 
be  brought  about  by  mere  legislative  action  and  particu- 
larly whether  it  can  be  brought  about  by  legislation  that 
each  single  worker — irrespective  of  other  conditions  and 
during  his  entire  life — shall  receive  enough  income  to  pay 
for  all  these  desirable  things  for  a  family  of  five. 

The  Interchurch  Report  spends  many  pages  in  the  Re- 
port itself  and  goes  into  much  greater  detail  in  Appendix  A 
to  show  that  the  minimum  American  standard  of  living  for 
an  average  family  of  5  requires  a  family  income  of  $2025.56 
to  $2262.47  ^'  year. 

This  Interchurch  proposition  is  that  every  head  of  a 

55 


56       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

family,  no  matter  what  his  position  or  ability,  should  receive 
a  minimum  wage  of  between  $2000  and  $2200  a  year.  ^ 

But  the  Department  of  Industrial  Relations  which  in- 
augurated the  Steel  Strike  Investigation,  in  the  Report  of 
its  "Findings  Committee"  Document  "No.  178 — II — 10 
Nov.  1919"  lays  down  the  following  basic  principle  for 
"industrial  readjustment"  which  is  emphasized  at  length 
but  is  epitomized  in  the  one  phrase  that : — 

"IV  4.  .  .  The  determination  of  wages  on  the  basis  of  occupation 
and  service  and  not  on  the  basis  of  sex. " 

And  the  official  Speakers'  Manual  of  the  whole  Inter- 
church  Movement  on  page  44,  lays  down  the  same  general 
principle  in  exactly  the  same  words. 

But  if  legislation  is  to  be  passed  that  every  man  who  is 
the  head  of  a  family,  and  every  woman  whether  the  head  of 
a  family  or  not,  who  does  the  same  work  that  any  married 
man  does,  must  be  paid  a  minimum  wage  of  $2000  a  year, 
it  is  obvious  that  as  a  matter  of  practical  fact  the  man  who 
is  not  married  or  who  is  a  widower  without  family  must  also 
be  paid  on  this  same  basis. 

In  other  words  considering  the  constitutional  inhibition 
against  class  legislation,  and  the  impossibility  of  minute 
discrimination  in  industry,  this  proposition  means  that 
irrespective  of  position  or  ability  or  any  other  condition, 
every  man  and  most  women  in  industry  must,  on  the  basis 
of  the  minimimi  living  costs  established  by  the  Interchurch 
Report,  be  paid  at  least  from  $2000  to  $2200  a  year. 

The  National  Bureau  of  Economic  Research  figures 
(see  page  50  ibid.)  show  that  in  1910  the  average  annual 
earnings  of  all  wage  earners  throughout  industry  were  $656. 
The  division  of  all  wages  paid,  as  shown  by  the  1910  U.  S. 

'  A  clear  understanding  of  the  merits  of  this  particular  argument  is 
important,  not  only  because  of  its  definite  emphasis  by  the  Interchurch 
Report,  but  because  the  union  leaders  of  the  coal  miners  and  railroad 
workers  have  both  widely  and  strongly  advanced  the  same  argument 
in  recent  attempts  to  advance  war  wages  and  as  part  of  their  advocacy 
of  government  ownership. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        57 

Industrial  Census,  by  the  number  of  wage  earners,  gives 
an  annual  income  for  such  individual  workers  of  about  $600. 
Such  workers  are  obviously  in  very  large  proportion  heads 
of  families.  Professor  Streightoff  of  Columbia  by  an 
analysis  of  the  earnings  of  19,658,000  out  of  the  total  of 
26,000,000  adtdt  male  workers  indicates  that  in  1912  the 
annual  wage  of  such  men  who  were  of  course  preponderately 
heads  of  families  was  about  $650.  The  National  Bureau  of 
Economic  Research  figures  show  that  the  average  earn- 
ings of  all  wage  earners  had  gone  up  by  1918  to  $1078.  This 
$1078,  for  reasons  already  stated,  may  doubtless  be  re- 
garded as  a  maximimi  figure  for  the  average  annual  earn- 
ings of  all  American  workers. 

The  Interchurch  Official  Speakers'  Manual  states  on  page 
27-B  in  IQ19  that  in  the 

"  Baptist  church,  the  average  minister's  salary  outside  of  some  city 
churches  amounts  to  less  than  $2.00  a  day  "  (or  about  $700  a  year). 

The  basic  proposition  of  the  Interchurch's  argument  as 
to  wages  and  living  costs  then  is  that  practically  every  man 
and  woman  worker  in  the  country  shall  arbitrarily  by  law 
have  their  wages  approximately  doubled. 

The  principle  upon  which  all  American  society,  including 
industry,  now  operates,  is  that  all  our  people  progress  most 
surely  and  steadily  through  a  sure  and  steady  increase  in 
production  proportionate  to  the  population,  so  that  there 
shall  be  a  continually  greater  amount  of  goods  of  all  kinds 
to  be  divided  and  enjoyed  either  by  consuming  them  or 
saving  their  equivalent  or  enjoying  that  equivalent  in 
shorter  working  hours  or  in  some  other  way. 

Production  per  individual  is  actually  about  three  times  to- 
day what  it  was  in  1 850,  even  with  everybody  working  at  that 
time  12  to  14  hours  a  day,  and  all  our  higher  present  stand- 
ards of  living  and  our  general  shorter  hours  are  the  result.^ 

"  M.  C.  Rorty  of  the  American  Statistical  Association  and  President 
of  the  National  Bureau  of  Economic  Research  in  his  pamphlet  "Notes 
on  Current  Economic  Problems"  III,  June,  1921,  says  on  page  10: 


58       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Modem  society  also  works  on  the  basis  that  the  best,  if 
not  the  only  way  to  insure  production  which  shall  be  ade- 
quate for  a  constant  general  material  advancement,  is  to 
hold  out  to  each  individual,  who  is  the  unit  of  production, 
the  maximum  incentive  for  his  individual  production. 

To  this  end  modern  society  has  organized  all  production 
on  a  system  under  which  each  individual  worker,  if  he  works 
at  all,  is  forced  to  produce  enough  to  supply  the  necessities 
to  support  himself  and  one  or  two  possible  dependents.  It 
forces  him  to  provide  for,  or  itself  provides  for  his  children 
and  educates  them  well  and  free  of  charge  till  they  are  i6 
years  old. 

Beyond  this  it  holds  out  to  the  individual  every  standard 
of  comfort  and  luxury  as  an  incentive  to  greater  individual 
effort  and  offers  each  individual  at  least  the  freest  oppor- 
tunity that  has  ever  been  offered  by  any  major  social  or- 
ganization in  htmian  history,  to  achieve  whatever  such 
standard  of  comfort  or  luxury  his  own  energy  and  ability 
are  capable  of  achieving. 

The  present  standard  of  American  living — which  is  a  far 
higher  standard  at  least  as  regards  material  comforts  and 
conveniences  than  has  ever  been  generally  achieved  in  any 
other  age  or  nation  and  which  has  been  brought  about  en- 
tirely on  this  basis — is  one  of  such  incentives.  The  very 
fact  that  such  an  unparalleled  majority  in  one  nation  have 
set  and  achieved  such  a  standard  of  living  through  increased 
individual  efficiency  and  cooperative  family  effort  is  itself  a 
conspicuous  demonstration  of  the  adequacy  of  that 
incentive. 


"  The  skilled  worker's  wage,  in  this  country,  will  buy  today  over  three 
times  as  much  wheat  flour  as  it  would  in  1855.  Yet  he  is  hardly  more 
capable  and  works  shorter  hours  than  his  predecessor  of  two  generations 
ago.  The  difference  lies  almost  wholly  in  the  mechanical  and  scientific 
developments  that  have  taken  place.  .  .  .  Careful  studies  have  shown 
that  in  the  United  States  the  annual  production  of  useful  goods  increases 
with  remarkable  steadiness  at  a  rate  between  3  and  4%  per  annum — 
whilethepopulationincreasesat  therateof  only  2%.  ..." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         59 

Moreover,  at  least  so  far  in  human  experience  every 
standard  of  living  has  in  its  turn  been  distinctly  an  achieve- 
ment. From  the  ages  of  savagery,  men  have  won  a  bare 
living,  then  comfort,  then  luxury  for  themselves  and  their 
families  in  proportion  to  effort  and  foresight  and  ability. 
The  whole  American  people  has  achieved  its  present  Ameri- 
can standard  of  living  on  exactly  the  same  basis — through 
generations  of  hard  productive  effort  (generally  on  a  12-  and 
14-hour  day)  through  generations  of  foresight  in  increasing 
our  national  margins  of  production  and  of  ability  in  using 
that  margin.  On  no  other  basis  would  the  enjoyment  of 
our  present  standard  of  living  and  our  present  shorter 
working  day  have  been  possible. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  family.  It  has  been  the  incentive  of  realizing  American 
standards  of  family  living  that  has  been  the  chief  individual 
motive  for  both  men  and  women  for  a  special  effort  in  pro- 
ducing and  saving  before  marriage  and  for  increased  effort 
and  better  use  of  ability  because  of  marriage.  It  has  been 
the  incentive  of  realizing  American  standards  of  family 
living  that  has  been  the  chief  motive  for  increased  coopera- 
tive family  effort  as  family  responsibilities  grew,  in  which 
effort  older  sons  and  daughters  have  joined  in  contributing 
to  the  advantages  of  younger  brothers  and  sisters.  Such 
incentives  constitute  an  asset  of  paramount  value  both  to 
the  average  American  and  the  whole  nation. 

All  the  tables  and  statistics  and  the  whole  argimient  in 
the  Interchurch  Report  in  regard  to  maintaining  an  Ameri- 
can standard  of  living  have  been  based  on  the  single  short 
period  in  family  life  during  which  four  members  may  de- 
pend entirely  on  the  support  of  one — a  period  which  seldom 
lasts  more  than  ten  years  out  of  the  average  individual 
working  life  of  some  40  years  and  the  very  existence  of 
which  period  offers  the  maximum  incentive  for  energy  and 
foresight  during  other  periods.  Moreover,  it  is  a  matter  of 
commonest  knowledge  that  during  this  period  where  neces- 
sary the  family  income  is  frequently  contributed  to  by  a 


6o       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

father  or  mother  or  unmarried  brother  or  sister  who  for  the 
time  being  constitute  part  of  the  family. 

In  other  words  the  average  worker  only  has  5  persons, 
including  himself,  to  support  at  most  for  some  20%  of  his 
working  life.  During  much  more  than  half  of  his  working 
life  he  has  no  one  else  or  only  one  other  person  to  support. 
To  give  him  arbitrarily,  irrespective  of  his  ability  to  earn 
it,  for  all  or  most  of  his  working  life  enough  income  to 
support  five  persons  would  not  only  tax  all  society  to  that 
extent  but  also  to  the  extent  that  it  would,  to  a  large  degree 
take  away  all  normal  incentive. 

Yet  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  suggest  or  consider 
these  facts,  which,  if  considered,  reduce  by  some  80%  the 
force  even  of  the  face  value  of  its  argument,  and  it  does  not 
mention  or  consider  the  paramount  value  in  industry  and  in 
all  American  life  of  the  incentive  which  the  ambition  to 
achieve  American  standards  of  living  for  the  individual  and 
the  family  exerts  in  continually  raising  the  whole  standard 
of  American  life. 

The  Interchurch  Investigation  was  made  among — and  its 
arguments  and  recommendations  based  on  that  investiga- 
tion refer  to — the  "mass  of  low-skilled  foreigners  particu- 
larly in  the  Chicago  and  Pittsburg  districts." 

The  majority  of  "low-skilled  foreigners"  are  from  the 
very  facts  of  their  heredity  and  other  circumstances — which 
facts  are  beyond  the  fault  or  control  of  any  American  institu- 
tion— undoubtedly  limited  as  to  their  individual  possibility 
of  normal  American  economic  advancement.  But  no  one 
who  knows  the  living  conditions  in  the  sections  of  Europe 
from  which  most  of  these  foreigners  come,  can  fail  to  appre- 
ciate the  very  material  advances  which  what  is  called  in 
America  the  subsistence  level  marks  over  such  former 
conditions  of  living. 

Moreover  there  is  probably  no  "low-skilled  foreigner" 
in  America  who  is  not  paid  wages  sufficient  to  maintain  him- 
self and  a  limited  number  of  dependents  well  above  the 
subsistence  level.     There  is  probably  no  foreign  labor  in 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         6i 

the  country  today  which  is  paid  as  little  as  the  Interchurch 
Speakers  Manual  says  the  average  minister  is  paid.  More- 
over there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  foreign-born  Ameri- 
cans who  have  become  prosperous  and  wealthy.  Also  the 
children  of  foreigners  are  in  no  sense  similarly  limited  and 
the  second  and  third  generations  so  far  have  achieved  an 
economic  status  that  is  quite  on  a  par  with  that  of  average 
Americans. 

In  regard  to  the  status  of  the  immigrant  worker  the  Inter- 
church World  Movement  in  another  report — a  Special 
"World  Survey" — Vol.  I. — pages  76  and  80  says: 

"In  their  own  country  they  were  overshadowed  by  a  state  religion 
which  was  ritualistic  and  political  in  its  character.  Economically  they 
were  compelled  to  work  for  starvation  wages  with  no  hope  for  their 
future.  Socially  they  were  handicapped  in  that  they  belonged  to  the 
lower  classes  and  the  possibility  of  rising  to  the  level  of  the  so-called 
upper  classes  was  next  to  hopeless  no  matter  what  their  natural  ability 
might  have  been. 

"In  America  they  had  more  to  eat.  They  wore  better  clothes.  They 
had  the  right  to  vote.  They  had  access  to  free  education.  They  were 
given  better  jobs  .  .  .  while  they  discovered  that  there  were  classes  in 
America,  they  had  the  freedom  to  pass  from  one  to  another  according 
to  their  character,  general  ability  and  personality  .  .  .  (and)  it  is  being 
daily  demonstrated  in  our  American  life  that  the  children  of  these  very 
foreigners  are  taking  places  of  leadership  and  are  rapidly  becoming  the 
backbone  of  America. " 

In. the  particular  case  of  the  Steel  Industry,  the  unskilled 
foreign  worker  received  wages  per  hour  far  higher  than  that 
paid  the  average  of  common  labor,  including  the  common 
labor  which  in  many  communities  is  largely  or  entirely 
American.  And  he  had  the  opportunity  of  long  hours  and 
steady  work  so  that  in  spite  of  his  inherent  economic  handi- 
caps he  was  able  to  earn  as  much  or  more  than  skilled 
American  workers  in  other  industries,  by  means  of  which  he 
can  at  least  advance  the  scale  of  his  children  and  grand- 
children exactly  as  former  generations  of  Americans,  by 
exactly  the  same  method  of  long,  steady  hoiu"s  of  hard  work, 


62       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

made  possible  the  present  scale  of  living  of  their  children 
and  grandchildren. ' 

Moreover  the  Steel  Industry  as  a  whole  including  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  and  the  many  independent  com-  • 
panics  have  already  spent  more  than  a  hundred  million 
dollars,  in  special  schools  and  clubs  and  playgrounds  and 
otherwise  for  the  express  purpose  of  providing  every  prac- 
tical facility  to  help  at  least  the  children  of  its  foreign 
workers  to  achieve  American  standards  of  living. 

Yet  the  whole  Interchurch  Report  does  not  discuss  pro 
or  con,  or  otherwise  consider,  or  even  mention  any  of  these 
special  inherent  circumstances  that  are  the  true  basis  of  cer- 
tain inevitable  facts  of  the  unskilled  foreign  worker's  life. 
Nor  has  it  paid  any  attention  to  the  large-scale  definite  and 
direct  work  that  is  being  carried  on  by  the  steel  companies 
to  change  these  inherent  conditions  at  least  as  they  apply 
to  the  next  generation.  ^ 

Yet  it  proposes,  by  an  argument  based  on  this  very  partial 
consideration  of  certain  inherent  facts  that  apply  only  to  a 
very  special  class,  that  we  enact  laws  for  the  purpose  of 
taking  away  from  all  society  the  chief  incentives  which 
Americans  have  always  believed  are  necessary  to  the 
constant  advancement  that  has  actually  resulted  from 
them. 

But  this  is  only  the  first  point  to  be  considered  in  regard 
to  this  "recommendation"  that  would  double  average 
wages. 

Throughout  all  American  industry,  wages — including  the 
wages  of  digging  or  raising  the  raw  material,  of  transporting 
it  and  of  carrying  it  through  all  the  different  steps  that  lead 
up  to  its  final  consumption — amount  to  between  80  and 
90%  of  the  cost  of  all  products.     It  follows  inevitably 

'  A  detailed  presentation  of  facts  in  this  connection  will  be  found  in 
Chapter  XVIII. 

'  Vol.  II  which  was  published  a  year  after  the  Report  proper  and  has 
had  no  such  wide  circulation  or  publicity  as  the  Main  Report  does  devote 
a  section  to  Steel  "welfare  work. " 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        63 

therefore — and  this  is  recognized  as  axiomatic  by  every 
economic  authority  as  well  as  every  business  man — that 
the  doubling  of  all  wages  that  enter  into  the  production  of 
any  product  inevitably  means  practically  doubling  the  cost 
of  the  product.  And  this  in  turn  means  that  all  workers  in 
spite  of  their  double  wages  would  soon  be  in  the  same  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  their  cost  of  living  as  they  were  before. 
By  the  same  token  the  possibility  of  entirely  maintaining 
the  high  American  standard  of  living  for  a  family  of  five 
on  the  earnings  of  one  individual  would  be  in  exactly  the 
same  position  as  it  is  at  present. 

The  basic  fallacy  of  course  of  the  Interchurch  argtunent, 
and  particularly  of  this  special  Recommendation  No.  7  in 
the  Findings,  is  that  it  entirely  fails  to  distinguish  the  differ- 
ence between  what  economists  refer  to  as  "nominal  wages  " 
and  "real  wages."  "Nominal  wages"  may  be  set  at  any 
dollars  and  cents  figure  you  please  but  "real  wages" — the 
actual  buying  power  of  the  wage — remains  the  same  on  any 
given  standard  of  industrial  productivity.* 

The  distinction  between  "nominal"  and  "real  wages" 
is  one  that  all  socialists,  I.  W.  W.'s  and  other  radicals  are 
particularly  emphasizing  at  the  present  time. 

Mr.  George  Soule,  whose  connection  with  the  Interchurch 
Steel  Strike  Report  will  be  referred  to  later,  in  his  book 
The  New  Unionism  (page  274)  says: 

"  In  the  matter  of  wages  a  practical  limit  will  before  long  be  reached. 
If  prices  continue  to  rise,  wages  may  rise  correspondingly,  but  '  real 
wages '  must  remain  almost  stationary  .  .  .  given  a  maximum  pro- 
ductivity, real  wages  can  rise  only  by  diverting  a  larger  share  of  the 
earnings  to  the  workers;  but  under  the  present  economic  regime,  this 

'  Dr.  Jenks  points  out  that  in  certain  exceptional  cases,  particularly 
in  the  production  of  luxuries  and  in  production  under  monopolistic 
conditions,  the  burden  of  higher  wages  may  legitimately  be  shifted  in 
part  to  the  consumer  and  that  such  action  limited  to  such  cases,  may  not 
effect  or  effect  only  slightly,  prices  in  general.  Any  sweeping  advance 
in  wages,  however,  will  inevitably  tend  to  raise  prices  accordingly  vmless 
it  is  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  increase  in  production. 


64       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

process  cannot  go  beyond  a  certain  point  without  driving  the  employers 
out  of  business  by  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  secxire  further 
capital." 

Mr.  Soule  again  says  in  the  same  volume  page  1 1 . 

"The  time  is  rapidly  approaching  as  even  its  conservative  (union) 
officials  admit  when  no  further  (wage)  gains  of  importance  can  be  made 
for  the  members  (coal  miners)  without  pressing  actively  for  the  nationali- 
zation of  the  mines, "  and  again, 

"...  the  enunciation  of  the  Plumb  plan  is  a  long  step  toward  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  need  for  a  new  economic  order  which  can  be 
attained  not  through  collective  bargaining,  but  only  through  combined 
political  and  economic  (the  taking  over  of  the  railroads  by  the  workers) 
action. " 

This  basic  socialistic  program  as  to  the  proper  solution  of 
our  basic  wage  problem  is  even  more  definitely  and  clearly 
stated  in  the  preamble  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Amalga- 
mated Clothing  workers  one  of  the  new  "Revolutionary 
Unions"  which  states: 

"The  industrial  and  inter-industrial  organization  built  upon  the 
solid  rock  of  clear  knowledge  and  class  consciousness  will  put  the  or- 
ganized working  class  in  actual  control  of  the  system  of  production  and 
the  working  class  will  then  be  ready  to  take  possession  of  it." 

In  regard  to  this  same  problem  the  preamble  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  I.  W.  W.  says : 

"Between  these  two  classes  a  struggle  must  go  on  until  the  workers 
of  the  world,  organized  as  a  class  take  possession  of  the  earth  and  machinery 
of  production." 

That  the  same  proposition  is  the  fundamental  principle 
of  other  extreme  forms  of  radicalism  including  the  Bolshevik 
is  too  well  known  to  require  specific  quotation. 

The  specific  relation — undoubtedly  entirely  unrecog- 
nized by  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  itself — between  the  particular  wage 
arguments  and  "Conclusions"  and  "Findings"  featured  in 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         65 

the  Interchurch  Report  and  these  fundamental  theories 
upon  which  sociaHsm,  I.  W.  W.ism  and  other  modem  forms 
of  radicalism  are  based,  will  be  specifically  discussed  in 
Chapter  XXIV  of  the  present  analysis. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

STEEL  WAGES  AND   STEEL   PROFITS 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  states  on 
page  13  line  18 — that;  "the  Commission's  investigation  did 
not  include  analysis  of  the  Corporation's  financial  organi- 
zation." Nevertheless  ,'_in  two  sections  it  brings  up  specifi- 
cally and  in  many  other  places  touches  on  indirectly  "the 
financial  ability  of  the  Corporation  to  pay  higher  wages" 
as  an  argument  by  insinuation  that  because  the  Corpora- 
tion could,  therefore  it  should,  pay  higher  wages. 

The  most  definite  of  such  arguments  by  insinuation  (but 
which  are  in  no  case  developed)  are : 

First:  that  in  regard  to  "  net  earnings  per  ton  of  steel  in  1 91 7  and 
1918  as  against  the  average  since  1910  "  (page  87  line  16) ; 

Second:  that  "increases  in  wages  during  the  war  were  in  no  case  at  a 
sacrifice  of  stockholder's  dividends"  (page  87  line  14 — and  page  14  line  i ) ; 

Third:  that  the  total  undivided  surplus  of  the  United  States  Steel 
corporation  was  "large  enough  to  have  paid  a  second  time  the  total 
wage  and  salary  budget  for  19 18 — [$452,663,524]  and  to  have  left  a 
surplus  of  over  $14,000,000  "  (page  13  line  28). 

"The  net  earnings  per  ton  of  steel "  is  stated  in  the  Inter- 
church Report  (page  87  line  18)  to  have  averaged  since 
1910 — obviously  from  1910  to  1916 — $13.03  and  to  have 
been  for  1917,  $19.76  and  for  1918  $14.39. 

No  authority  whatever  is  given  for  these  figures,  or  if 
they  were  computed  from  other  figures,  any  suggestions  as 
to  how  they  were  arrived  at.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  are 
merely  quoted  from  an  equally  unsupported  statement  in  a 
magazine  article.  Taken  at  their  face  value,  however,  they 
mean  that  in  191 7  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation 

66 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         67 

earned  net  per  ton  of  steel  51%,  and  in  191 8  just  10%,  more 
than  the  average  earnings  for  the  years  igioto  1916  which 
includes  the  several  very  poor  business  years  just  before 
the  war  during  one  of  which,  1914,  the  income  account 
shows  a  net  deficit  of  $16,971,983.83  (13th  Annual  Report). 

Against  this  51%  alleged  higher  earnings  per  ton  in  its 
best  year,  must  be  considered  the  fact  that  during  the  year 
191 7,  in  which  our  entry  into  the  war  called  for  a  maximiun 
enlargement  of  all  steel  facilities,  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corpora- 
tion spent  $87,988,000  in  extra  equipment  to  meet  these 
war  requirements. 

Moreover  in  191 7  and  191 8  the  dollar  was  worth  very  much 
less  than  between  1910  and  191 6. 

Finally,  during  this  period,  in  which  general  commodity 
prices  increased  107%  and  the  value  of  earnings  decreased 
50%,  whereas  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  even  allege 
that  average  earnings  per  ton  of  steel  increased  for  the  two 
years  more  than  30.5%,  it  admits  (page  97,  footnote  i)  that 
wages  increased  (1910  to  1919)  150%. 

The  second  argument  by  insinuation — ^that  wages  whould 
have  been  further  increased  "because  increase  in  wages 
during  the  war  in  no  case  were  at  a  sacrifice  of  stockholders' 
dividends" — is  repeatedly  reiterated  in  this  and  similar 
forms.  This  argument  is  of  course  on  its  face  obviously 
untrue  because  with  any  given  income  the  more  that  is  paid 
to  workers  the  less  can  be  paid  to  stockholders  and  vice 
versa.  Moreover,  the  only  possible  reason  for  making  such 
a  statement  and  repeating  it  is  to  give  the  impression  that 
the  dividends  to  stockholders  were  increased  more  or  at  least 
as  much  as  the  increases  of  wages  to  labor.  This  is  specifi- 
cally not  true.  On  the  contrary,  wages  to  labor  were  in- 
creased very  much  more  than  dividends  to  stockholders. 

The  cost  of  living  by  the  end  of  the  war — the  period  under 
discussion — had  advanced  according  to  the  figures  of  the 
National  Industrial  Conference  Board  (whose  figures  are 
regarded  as  standard  and  used  by  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks 
and   the    National    Railroad   administration)    64%.     By 


68       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

September,  1919,  the  time  of  the  steel  strike,  they  had  gone 
up  80%.  Steel  wages  on  the  other  hand  had  during  the 
same  time,  as  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  admits  (page 
97) ,  gone  up  an  average  of  1 50%  and  in  the  case  of  the  lowest 
paid  labor  had  gone  up  163%. 

The  standard  dividend  on  U.  S.  Steel  common  stock  is  5%. 
It  was  5%  in  1910-11-12  and  13.  In  1914  because  of  the 
$16,971,983.83  net  deficit  previously  referred  to,  although 
wages  were  not  cut  at  all  but  were  paid  at  the  full  rate  out 
of  the  surplus  funds  as  will  be  shown  later,  the  dividends  to 
stockholders  were  only  3%,  in  1915  i}i%,  in  1916  8^%. 
In  1917  they  were  17% — in  1918  14% — in  1919  and  1920 
5%.  An  exact  and  detailed  comparison  of  the  wages  and 
dividends  paid  by  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  thruout  this 
period  follows.  It  will  be  noted  that  wages  are  for  all 
departments  and  do  not  include  sales  and  administrative 
employees.  Wages  for  steel  manufacturing  departments 
and  for  12-hour  workers  averaged  of  course  much  higher 
and  showed  a  much  greater  increase  over  1913.  Even  on 
this  broadest  basis  of  comparison,  however,  it  appears 
plainly  that  steel  wages  were  increased  far  more  during  this 
period  than  steel  dividends.  Moreover,  while  steel  divi- 
dends returned  in  19 19  to  the  191 3  level,  steel  wages 
remained  at  the  peak  level  until  well  into  1921  and  in  Sep- 
tember, 1922,  they  are  at  approximately  the  191 8  level. 

COMPARISON    OF  DIVIDENDS  AND  WAGES 
U.   S.   STEEL   CORPORATION 


Rate  of 

Dividends 

Average^ 

1Q13  Wage 

Year 

Dividends 

5%  =  100 

Wage  Per  Day 

$2.85   =   700 

1914 

3     % 

60 

$2.88 

lOI 

1915 

8H% 

25 

2.92 

103 

1916 

175 

3-29 

"5 

1917 

^7     % 

340 

4.10 

144 

1918 

*4     % 

280 

5-33 

187 

1919 

5     % 

100 

6.12 

214 

1920 

5     % 

100 

6.96 

244 

Average'      7.7%  154  $4.67  17 1.7 

'  Does  not  include  selling  or  administrative  salaries. 
»  Weighted  averages  computed  by  Haskins  and  Sells. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         69 

The  third  method  by  which  the  Interchurch  Report  seeks 
to  create  the  impression  that  the  steel  industry  can  afford 
to  and  therefore  should,  pay  still  higher  wages,  is  again  not 
by  definite  straightforward  argument  or  statement,  but  by 
insinuations  through  cleverly  coupled  facts  and  vague 
clever  phraseology  in  regard  to  the  surplus  funds  of  the  steel 
companies. 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  its  conclusions  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  volume  (page  13,  line  23),  states: — 

"Compared  with  the  wage  budgets  in  1918,  the  Corporation's  final 
surplus  after  paying  dividends  of  $96,382,027  and  setting  aside  $274,- 
277,835  for  Federal  Taxes,  payable  in  1919  was  $466,888,421 — a  sum 
large  enough  to  have  paid  a  second  time  the  total  wage  and  salary 
budget  for  1918  ($452,663,524)  and  to  have  left  a  surplus  of  over 
$14,000,000.  In  1919,  the  undivided  surplus  was  $493,048,201.93  or 
$13,000,000  more  than  the  total  wage  and  salary  expenditure." 

There  is  little  question  that  the  foregoing  statement, 
because  of  its  particular  phraseology  would  naturally  lead 
anyone  not  familiar  with  accounting  and  the  nature  of  a 
corporation  surplus — which  undoubtedly  includes  the  great 
majority  of  the  readers  of  the  Interchurch  Report — to  be- 
lieve that  the  Steel  Corporation's  surplus  of  $466,888,421 
in  191 8  was  the  surplus  for  the  one  year  19 18  after  paying 
that  year's  dividends,  taxes,  etc. ;  and  again  that  the  sur- 
plus of  $493,048,201.93  in  1919  was  the  surplus  for  merely 
that  year.  Unless  that  impression  is  to  be  gathered,  why  is  it 
stated  that  the  surplus  in  19 18  could  pay  "a  second  time  the 
total  wage  and  salary  budget"  and  leave  a  balance  of 
$14,000,000,  and  then  in  the  next  year  also  again  pay  a 
second  time  "the  total  wage  and  salary  expenditures"  and 
leave  a  balance  of  $13,000,000?  Moreover,  the  impression 
that  these  figures  of  $466,000,000  and  $493,000,000  repre- 
sented surpluses  for  single  years  is  further  accentuated  by 
the  phraseology  of  the  note  which  follows  at  the  bottom  of 
the  same  page  which  refers  to  them  in  the  plural  as  "sur- 
pluses." 


70       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  surplus  of  $466,000,000 
in  the  year  191 8  represented  the  cumulative  savings  of  18 
years  and  the  surplus  of  $493,048,201.93  in  the  year  1919 
consisted  of  this  $466,000,000  accumulated  surplus  of  r8 
years  plus  $26,000,000  which  was  the  total  surplus  of  the 
year  1919.  If  therefore  as  the  Interchurch  Report  suggests 
this  18  years'  accumulated  surplus  was  used  in  the  year  191 8 
to  double  wages,  instead  of  having  any  surplus  at  all  in 
191 9,  with  which  again  to  double  wages,  all  that  would  have 
been  left  of  the  surplus  in  19 18  plus  all  the  surplus  for  the 
individual  year  191 9  would  not  have  paid  10%  of  the  an- 
nual wages  in  1919. 

A  surplus  performs  exactly  the  same  function  for  a  cor- 
poration as  a  bank  account  performs  for  an  individual.  It 
makes  it  possible  to  meet  any  sudden  financial  contingency 
without  costly  sacrifice  through  sudden  curtailment  of 
expenditures — which  in  the  case  of  a  corporation  means 
sudden  reduction  of  wages  or  suddenly  throwing  large 
nimibers  of  men  out  of  work — and  it  makes  it  possible  to 
meet  a  prolonged  depression  by  a  gradual  readjustment 
which  means  a  minimtun  loss  to  all  concerned,  including 
employees. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  year  1914  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  had  had  a 
net  deficit  of  $16,971,983.83.  That  same  year  dividends 
were  decreased  from  5%  to  3%  and  the  following  year  to 
iM%-  It  has  also  been  stated  that  wages  that  year  were 
not  decreased  and  the  nimiber  of  men  laid  off  whole  or  part 
time  was  very  small  as  compared  with  the  general  unemploy- 
ment throughout  the  country.  Reference  to  the  table  at 
the  bottom  of  page  13  in  the  Interchurch  Report  will  also 
show  that  the  total  undivided  surplus  of  the  Steel  Corpora- 
tion, instead  of  being  gradually  increased  as  in  other  years, 
was  in  1914  decreased  $16,593,956.99  or  by  almost  the  same 
amount  as  the  net  deficit  for  that  year. 

In  other  words  during  this  year  of  depression  and  net 
loss  to  the  Company,  dividends  were  decreased  40%  and 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         71 

the  following  year  75%  below  the  normal  rate.  But  wages 
were  not  decreased  because  the  Corporation  had  a  surplus 
out  of  which  it  could  meet  its  losses  and  maintain  its  wages 
and  out  of  which  it  did  meet  its  losses  and  maintain  its  wages. 
That  this  surplus  was  thus  specifically  and  deliberately 
used  to  maintain  wages  and  employment  in  this  period  of 
financial  depression  is  particulariy  emphasized  by  certain 
instructions  of  Judge  Gary  to  the  Presidents  of  subsidiary 
companies  given  in  that  year  and  quoted  in  the  Senate  In- 
vestigation of  the  Steel  Strike,  Part  I  (page  237)  as  follows  * 

"Now  you  will  have  some  occasion  perhaps  during  the  immediate 
future  to  consider  further  some  of  these  matters  and  they  may  involve 
considerable  cost.  If  so  I  should  consider  the  money  well  expended. 
It  is  even  possible  that  there  may  be  some  distress  among  some  of  your 
employees  or  those  who  have  been  your  employees  but  who  are  out  of 
work,  or  in  the  families  of  these  men.  .  .  .  Some  of  these  families  are 
occupying  our  houses  and  while  out  of  work  they  may  be  unable  to  pay 
rent.  In  such  cases,  leave  the  families  in  the  houses.  Suspend  the  rent 
until  they  are  able  to  pay  it.  The  amoimt  of  money  involved  is  of  slight 
importance  as  compared  with  your  duty  and  your  pleasure  as  big,  broad 
employers  of  labor.  As  suggested,  you  may  have  to  relieve  (lay  off) 
more  men  but  do  not  interrupt  their  employment  imless  and  imtil 
necessary.  .  .  .  If  you  can  keep  the  men  at  work  to  some  extent  arovmd 
the  mills  cleaning  up,  putting  your  property  in  condition  I  would  do  so. 
You  may  expect  to  meet  considerable  loss  during  the  coming  winter 
but  if  in  so  doing  you  have  added  to  the  relief,  benefit  and  comfort  of 
employees  who  in  the  nature  of  things  are  more  or  less  dependent  upon 
you,  it  should  be  a  pleasure. " 

The  whole  question  of  surpluses  has  been  particulariy 
widely  discussed  in  the  last  few  years.  Severe  criticism 
has  recently  been  generally  expressed  of  a  ntunber  of  large 
corporations — particularly  the  Interborough  Rapid  Transit 
Company  of  New  York,  the  American  Woolen  Company 
and  other  companies — ^who  have  been  accused  of  having 
dissipated  all  their  high  earnings  of  prosperous  years  in 
temporary  too  high  dividends  or  too  high  wages  instead  of 
accumulating  a  surplus,  which  would  have  made  sudden 
large  scale  unemployment  and  sudden  financial  difficulties 


^2       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

avoidable.  The  Kansas  Industrial  Court  has  laid  down  the 
general  rule  that  employers  are  in  duty  bound,  as  a  measure 
of  protection  for  their  workers  to  lay  up  during  their  pros- 
perous years  surpluses  to  meet  the  contingencies  of  less 
favorable  business  conditions.  The  Labor  Union  move- 
ment in  England  is  on  record  in  favor  of  national  legislation 
to  compel  employers  to  accumulate  surpluses  in  times  of 
prosperity  and  to  use  these  surpluses,  just  as  the  U.  S.  Steel 
Corporation  has  used  its  surplus,  to  insure  against  sudden 
widespread  unemployment  in  times  of  depression.  Not 
only  then  can  there  be  no  question  of  the  fundamental  sound- 
ness of  the  accumulation  of  such  a  surplus,  but  there  is  no 
question  that  it  is  fundamentally  unsound  business  practice 
not  to  accimiulate  such  a  reasonable  surplus  as  opportunity 
permits. 

The  only  possible  questions  therefore  in  regard  to  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  surplus,  against  which  the  Inter- 
church  Report  goes  to  such  lengths  to  prejudice  its  readers, 
are  its  size,  the  rate  at  which  it  has  been  increased  and 
whether  or  not  that  rate  has  seriously  handicapped  legitimate 
rates  of  wages  or  dividends. 

The  total  assets  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  as  shown 
by  the  balance  sheet  of  its  i8th  Annual  Report,  December 
31,  1919,  audited  by  Price,  Waterhouse  and  Co.,  was 
$2,365,882,382.13.  The  $493,048,201.93  which  represents 
its  total  of  18  years'  accumulative  surplus  was  just  21.7%  of 
these  total  assets.  This  21.7%  surplus  therefore  represents 
an  average  increase  during  18  years  of  less  than  iM%  a 
year.  Certainly  no  private  individual  or  ordinary  business 
would  be  criticized  for  adding  to  its  liquid  assets — that  is  its 
bank  account  or  its  equivalent — at  the  rate  of  1 34%  a  year 
unless  on  the  ground  that  the  rate  was  unreasonably  small. 

The  total  volume  of  business  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corpora- 
tion for  the  year  191 8  as  reported  in  its  17th  Annual  Report 
(page  24)  was  $1,744,312,163.  Its  surplus  for  the  year  1918 
as  stated  in  the  same  Annual  Report  of  the  Company  (page 
6) — and  clearly  arrived  at  by  a  correct  interpretation  of  the 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         73 

table  at  the  bottom  of  page  13  of  the  Interchurch  Report — 
is  $35,227,617.75.^  The  surplus  for  the  year  1918  then  is 
jUvSt  2.02%  of  the  volume  of  business  for  that  year.  Cer- 
tainly no  private  individual  or  ordinary  corporation  would 
be  criticized  for  saving  a  bare  2%  of  gross  income  a  year 
unless  again  perhaps  on  the  grounds  that  such  a  percentage 
of  saving  was  too  small. 

The  total  volume  of  business  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation 
for  the  year  1919,  as  reported  in  the  i8th  Annual  Report 
(page  24),  was  $1,448,557,835.  The  surplus  for  the  same  year 
as  stated  in  this  annual  report  (page  6) — which  checks  with 
a  proper  interpretation  of  the  table  on  page  13  of  the  Inter- 
church Report— was  $26,159,780,55  which  is  just  1.8%  of 
gross  income.  Surely  again  no  private  individual  or  ordi- 
nary company  would  be  criticized  for  saving  1.8%  of  gross 
income  per  year  unless  again  on  the  ground  that  such  a 
percentage  of  saving  is  too  small. 

As  a  matter  of  plain  demonstrable  fact  then,  the  Inter- 
church Report's  attempt  by  insinuations  and  false  or  mis- 
leading statements  in  regard  to  surplus  and  profits,  to  argue 
indirectly  that  steel  wages  are  low  is  equally  fallacious  and 
otherwise  exactly  on  the  same  plane  with  its  attempt  to 
justify  the  same  conclusion  through  a  type  of  direct  argument 
and  a  misuse  of  statistics  that  has  already  been  analyzed  and 
characterized. 

'  This  is  shown  by  the  financial  statement  to  include  some  $6,000,000 
carried  over  from  the  previous  year,  therefore  not  to  be  surplus  for  the 
year  19 18  only. 


CHAPTER  IX 

INTERCHURCH   ARGUMENTS   AS   TO    STEEL   WORKING   HOURS 

The  Interchurch  Report  begins  the  chapter  in  which 
it  discusses  steel  working  hours,  and  calls  "The  Twelve 
Hour  Day,"  with  the  following  specific,  emphasized 
conclusions : 

A.  "Approximately  half  the  employees  in  iron  and  steel  manufactur- 
ing plants  are  subject  to  the  schedule  known  as  the  12-hour  day  [that  is  a 
working  day  from  1 1  to  14  hours  long] ; 

B.  "Less  than  one-quarter  of  the  industry's  employees  can  work 
under  60  hours  a  week  although  in  most  industries  60  hours  was  re- 
garded as  the  maximum  working  week  ten  years  ago : 

C.  "In  the  past  decade  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  has 
increased  the  percentage  of  its  employees,  subject  to  the  12-hour  day." 

These  conclusions  are  largely  the  same  in  substance  and 
phraseology  as  the  specially  featured  conclusions  in  the 
Interchurch  Report's  "Introduction,"  which  consists  en- 
tirely of  conclusions  and  recommendations,  with  the  follow- 
ing exceptions.  Its  Introduction  states  that  approximately 
"one-half  the  employees  of  the  steel  industry  (without  the 
qualification  'iron  and  steel  manufacturing  plants')  were 
subject  to  the  12  hour  day."  In  addition  it  is  stated  that 
"approximately  one-half  of  these  in  turn  were  subject  to  the 
7-day  week."  It  is  also  stated  here  that  "much  less  than 
one-quarter  had  a  working  day  of  less  than  ten  hours." 

According  to  the  Interchurch  Report  then,  steel  working 
hours  are  as  follows: 

74 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         75 

( 1 )  "  Less  "  or  "  much  less ' '  than  25  %  of  the  men  "  can  work  less  than 
60  hours  a  week"; 

(2)  Some  25%,  although  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  mention 
these  at  all,  evidently  work  something  between  lo  and  12  hours; 

(3)  25 %  work  the  1 2-hour  day  6  days  a  week ; 

(4)  25%  work  12  hours  and  also  were  "subject  to  the  7-day  week"; 

(5)  "  Usually  the  shifts  alternate  weekly  and  the  n:en  must  work  the 
long  turn  of  18  or  24  hours — a  solid  day  at  heavy  labor"  (page  47). 

In  contrast  to  this  picture  of  steel  working  hours  as  pre- 
sented by  the  Interchurch  Report,  Judge  Gary  testified 
before  the  Senate  Committee  in  October,  1919,  that  the 
working  hours  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  were 
as  follows  (Senate  Hearings,  page  157) : 

(i)  88,994  employees  or  34%  of  all  employees  worked  approximately 
8  hours  a  day. 

(2)  102,902  employees  or  39.5%  of  all  employees  worked  10  hours 
a  day. 

(3)  69,284  employees  or  26,5%  of  all  employees  worked  the  12-hour 
turn. 

(4)  The  7-day  week  has  been  eliminated. 

(5)  Out  of  a  total  of  191,000  employees  82  worked  a  continuous  24- 
hour  shift  once  in  each  month,  344  men  worked  a  continuous  18  hovu"s 
twice  each  month.     (Senate  Hearings  page  202.) 

''Employees  who  can  work  less  than  60  hours  a  week." 

There  are  two  things  to  be  noted  about  the  Interchurch 
Report's  conclusion  that  "less"  or  "much  less  than  25% 
of  steel  workers  can  work  under  60  hours  a  week." 

The  Senate  testimony  as  to  the  working  hours  of  all  U.S. 
Steel  Corporation  employees  stated  specifically  the  number 
of  "approximately  8-hour"  workers.  The  Interchurch 
Report  has  this  statement  and  quotes  frequently  from  other 
parts  of  the  same  paragraph  but  it  does  not  mention  or 
consider  these  definite  figures  that  34%  of  all  workers  work 
approximately  8  hours  a  day.  Moreover  it  itself  does  not 
advance  any  figures  as  to  8-hour  workers  or  as  to  9-hour 
workers,  nor  does  it  asmuch  as  mention  such  workers.  It 
entirely  ignores  the  subject  of  the  8-  or  9-hour  workers — ^just 


76       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

as  it  leaves  a  complete  blank  as  to  the  workers  (obviously 
from  its  own  figures  25%)  who  work  between  10  and  12 
hours — except  for  these  two  sweeping  conclusions  that 
"less"  or  "much  less  than  one-fourth  of  the  industry's  em- 
ployees can  work  under  60  hours  a  week."  ^ 

There  are  two  principal  authoritative  sources  of  infor- 
mation as  to  conditions  in  the  modern  steel  industry.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  figures  as  to  steel  wages  and  steel  hours 
contained  in  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  Monthly 
Review  for  October,  191 9.  These  figures — at  least  as  far  as 
they  apply  to  12-hour  workers — the  Interchurch  Report 
uses  constantly. 

This  government  study  shows  working  hours  for  six 
principal  departments,  the  hours  for  one  of  which  were  as 
follows : 

U.  S.  BUREAU  OF  LABOR  STATISTICS 
Monthly  Review,  October,  1919,  Pages  122-123 

Sheet  Mill 

AVERAGE   FULL   TIME   HOURS   PER   WEEK 

Occupation  1913  1914  1915  1917  "1919" 

Pair  Heater 42.8  42.8  42,8  43.7  43.6 

Roller 42.8  42.8  42.9  43.7  43.6 

Rougher 42.8  42.8  42.8  43.7  43.7 

Catcher 42.8  42.8  42.8  43.7  42.8 

Matcher 42.8  42.8  42.8  43.7  43.7 

Doubler 42.8  42.8  42.8  43.7  43.6 

Sheet  Heater 42.8  42.8  42.9  43.7  43.7 

Sheet  Heater  Helper 42.9  42.8  42.9  43.2  43.2 

Shearmen 42.9  42.9  43.0  43.5  43.5 

Shearmen  Helper 42.9  42.9  43.8  43.2  46.6 

Openers 42.8  42.8  43.6  43.3  44.0 

Laborers 64.9  65.9  65  61.8  66.5 

The  second  principal  authoritative  source  of  information 
as  to  conditions  in  the  modern  steel  industry  is  the  still  more 
comprehensive  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Bulletin  218 

'  One  brief  table  presented  on  page  49  contains  one  line  which  says: 
"on  8  hours  10  per  cent." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         77 

(October,  19 17) — a  document  of  some  500  pages  devoted 
entirely  to  a  most  elaborate  and  detailed  study  of  labor 
conditions  in  the  steel  industry,  partly  for  the  decade  and 
partly  for  the  5  years  up  to  May,  19 15. 

This  study,  in  its  conclusions,  groups  steel  manufacturing 
throughout  the  country  according  to  10  representative  de- 
partments. Its  conclusions  as  to  hours  in  each  of  these  de- 
partments will  be  touched  on  later.  In  connection,  however, 
with  the  Interchurch  Report's  efforts  to  hide  the  existence 
of  the  8-hour  day  in  the  steel  industry  and  its  statement 
that  "less  than  one-fourth  of  the  industry's  employees  can 
wofk  under  60  hours  a  week,"  the  summary  made  by  this 
document  as  to  working  hours  in  four  of  these  10  principal 
steel-making  departments  is  extremely  interesting. 

In  summarizing  working  hours  in  these  departments  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin  218  (October,  1917)  says: 

PUDDLING  MILLS,  SUMMARY  OF  HOURS  (Page  i86) 

"In  191 5  (May,  nine  months  after  the  war  began)  24%  worked  5 
turns  per  week,  50%  worked  6  days  one  week  and  5  nights  the  next, 
1 1  %  were  employed  in  3  shifts  in  24  hours,  two  working  five  days  each 
only,  Monday  to  Friday,  while  the  third  (each  shift  altematingly) 
worked  a  turn  on  Saturday,  making  6  for  the  week"  (13%  worked  6 
days  per  week;  1%  6  and  7  days  alternately  and  1%  7  days  per  week 
leaving  85%  working  5  or  sJ^  days  a  week). 

BAR  MILLS,  SUMMARY  OF  HOURS  (Page  309) 

Hours  Per  cent,  of  all  Employees 

48  to  60 48 

Over  60  and  under  72 41 

72 8 

Over  72 I 

(48%  under  60  hours  a  week,  ^p%  few /Ac»  72  Aottf^.) 

SHEET  MILLS,  SUMMARY  OF  HOURS  (Page  414) 

"  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  customary  working  time  of  the  large  num- 
ber of  employees  in  this  department  was  five  days,  five  and  six  davs  in  ro- 


78       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

tation.  In  all  except  one  of  the  plants  covered,  the  hot  mill  employees 
were  divided  into  three  groups,  each  working  8  hours  per  turn,  5  turns 
per  week,  Monday  to  Friday  inclusive,  with  one  crew  (alternately) 
working  i  turn  Saturday  morning."  (40  hours  each  for  two  weeks  and 
48  hours  each  third  week.) 

TIN  PLATE  MILLS,  SUMMARY  OP  HOURS  (Page  445) 

"It  will  be  noticed  that  the  customary  working  time  of  a  large 
percentage  of  the  employees  in  this  department  was  5  days,  5  and  6 
days  in  rotation.  In  all  the  plants  covered  the  regular  turn  employees 
were  divided  into  3  crews,  each  working  8  hours  per  turn,  5  turns  per 
week  from  Monday  to  Friday  inclusive  with  one  crew  (alternately) 
working  an  extra  turn  Saturday  morning." 

Hours  per  week,  40  for  two  weeks  and  48  each  third  week. 

The  7-day  Week  and  the  24-hour  Shift 

After  beginning  its  chapter  on  steel  working  hours  by 
the  statement  of  the  three  conclusions  already  quoted  and 
making  certain  further  general  statements,  the  Interchurch 
Report  in  defining  the  12 -hour  day  on  page  47  says: 

"  Usuully  the  shifts  alternate  weekly  and  the  men  must  work  the 
'long  turn'  of  18  hours  or  24  hours  ...  in  some  plants  the  36-hour 
turn  is  still  not  unknown. " 

In  this  same  connection  the  Interchurch  Report  brings 
up  the  subject  of  the  7 -day  week  in  regard  to  which  it  says  in 
its  conclusions  that  one-fourth  of  the  employees  "were 
subjected  to  the  7-day  week." 

In  regard  to  the  "long  turn"  the  specific  Senate  evidence 
already  quoted  (Senate  Hearings,  part  one,  page  202)  is 
that: 

"Out  of  a  total  of  191,000  employees  (of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation) 
82  work  a  continuous  24-hour  shift  once  in  each  month.  .  .  .  344  men 
work  a  continuous  18  hours  twice  each  month.  No  other  employees 
work  a  continuous  18-  or  24-hour  shift  except  in  emergency  times  like 
the  war." 

Except  for  reference  to  it  in  connection  with  quotations 
from  diaries  or  statements  of  some  few  individual  workers 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         79 

the  Interchurch  Report  makes  no  attempt  to  support  its 
conclusion  that  "ustmlly"  the  12-hour  worker  must  work 
the  long  shift  "alternately  weekly";  makes  no  specific  answer 
to  Judge  Gary's  statement  that  out  of  191,000  men  only  82 
per  month  work  a  24-hour  shift  although  it  elsewhere  quotes 
the  next  sentence,  and  makes  no  reference  whatever  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  only  claimed  before  the  Senate  Committee 
(page  202)  that  400  or  500  workers  or  some  ^\  oi  i  %  of  the 
workers  were  subject  to  such  shifts. 

As  regards  the  7-day  week  there  is  no  question  that  if  it 
exists,  or  to  the  extent  it  exists,  it  justifies  in  the  mind  of 
the  average  American,  such  condemnation  as  the  Inter- 
church Report  gives  it.  The  7-day  week  is  generally 
regarded  as  incompatible  with  modern  social  standards. 
But  except  in  connection  with  war  necessity,  when  it  existed 
in  many  war  industries,  the  Steel  Corporation  officials  deny 
its  existence  in  the  U.S.  Steel  Corporation — except  tempo- 
rarily in  isolated  cases  of  emergency  such  as  are  likely  to 
happen  in  all  kinds  of  work.  In  191 1,  the  Corporation 
officially  declared  that :  "Whether  viewed  from  a  physical, 
social  or  moral  point  of  view  we  believe  the  7-day  week  is 
detrimental."  Positive  instructions  were  issued  to  all 
departments  of  the  company  that  7-day  work  was  not  to  be 
allowed  and  while  it  was  stated  that  in  any  industry,  "at 
rare  intervals  there  may  come  emergencies  that  would  make 
absolute  enforcement  of  any  exact  schedule  of  hours 
impracticable,"  it  was  also  added  that  "any  tendency  on  the 
part  of  any  one  to  disregard  the  spirit  or  the  letter  of  such 
order  (against  the  7-day  week)  should  be  sufficient  cause  for 
removal  from  service."  This  order  is  quoted  in  full  in  the 
Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  231. 

In  answer  to  questions  in  regard  to  Sunday  and  7-day 
work  under  normal  conditions — "  i9i4for  example,"  Judge 
Gary  testified  before  the  Senate  Committee  (Senate  Hear- 
ings, Part  I,  page  179) : 

Mr.  Gary:  "  Now  the  war  came  on  and  the  government  was  clamoring 
for  more  and  more  steel .  .  .  they  were  insisting  on  more  and  more  days 


8o       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

of  work  ...  It  was  not  until  after  the  armistice  of  November  ii,  1918, 
that  Secretary  of  War  Baker  through  Riley,  Adjutant  General  .  .  . 
wrote, '  The  Secretary  of  War  directs  me  to  notify  you  to  stop  all  Stm- 
day  work'  .  .  .  and  we  immediately  put  that  into  practise  just  as  fast 
as  we  could." 

Senator  Phipps:  "Judge  Gary,  will  you  kindly  give  us  the  practice 
prevailing  in  normal  times,  say  just  before  the  war,  taken  in  1914,  what 
were  the  hours  per  day  and  days  per  week?  " 

Mr.  Gary:  "Sunday  work  was  practically  eliminated  except  as  to  the 
blast  furnaces  which  are  required  to  be  continuously  operated  .  .  .  and 
in  those  cases  we  reduced  the  days  per  week  .  .  .  giving  each  employee 
one  day  (off)  during  the  week  whether  it  was  Sunday  or  another  day." 

Mr.  Clayton  L.  Patterson,  Secretary  of  the  Bureau  of 
Labor  of  the  National  Association  of  Sheet  and  Tin  Plate 
Manufacturers — among  the  chief  competitors  of  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation — in  a  published  pamphlet^ 
in  which  he  admits  the  limited  existence  of  the  7 -day  week — 
from  10%  to  14%  varying  with  conditions — in  the  steel 
industries  with  which  he  himself  is  associated  nevertheless 
says  (page  73) : 

"The  seven-day  week  has  already  been  eliminated  by  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation  and  by  many  independent  plants  .  .  .  (by 
using)  an  extra  swing  crew,  which  relieves  each  regular  crew  alternately. 
By  this  method  each  crew  has  one  day  off  each  week  but  that  day  may 
be  any  day  in  the  week. " 

Now  it  is  to  be  particularly  noted  that  although  no  steel 
man  denies  the  existence  of  a  certain  amount  of  7 -day  work 
in  certain  "independent"  plants  of  the  steel  industry — 
although  Mr.  Patterson,  while  emphasizing  that  the  7-day 
week  has  already  been  eliminated  by  the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation,  specifically  admits  its  existence  to  a  limited 
extent  in  the  group  of  which  he  himself  is  an  official,  the 
Interchurch  Report  treats  the  question  of  the  7-day  week  in 
"independent  plants"  only  incidentally  and  focuses  its 
effort  on  attempting  to  prove  that  the  United  States  Steel 

'  Review  of  "The  Steel  Strike  of  19 19  by  the  Commission  of  Inquiry 
Interchurch  World  Movement." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         8i 

Corporation  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  continued  existence 
of  the  7-day  week  throughout  the  industry. 

The  Interchurch  Report  particularly  quotes  the  testimony 
before  the  Senate  Commission  in  regard  to  the  elimination 
of  the  7-day  week  in  Corporation  plants.  In  addition  it 
quotes  (page  69)  from  a  letter  of  January  30,  1920  to  the 
Interchurch  Commission  in  which  Judge  Gary  said : 

"As  to  the  7-day  week,  however,  beg  to  state  that  prior  to  the  war  it 
had  been  eliminated  entirely  except  as  to  maintenance  and  repair  crews  on 
infrequent  occasions.  During  the  war  at  the  urgent  request  by  govern- 
ment officials  for  larger  production,  there  was  considerable  continuous 
7-day  service  in  some  of  the  departments.  With  the  close  of  the  war, 
this  attitude  was  changed  and  the  7-day  service  has  been  very  largely 
eliminated.  At  the  present  time  there  is  comparatively  little  of  it.  We 
expect  to  entirely  avoid  it  very  shortly." 

Using  this  quotation  as  its  hypothesis,  the  Interchurch 
Report  begins  its  discussion  of  the  7 -day  week  with  this 
question  (page  71) : 

"What  are  the  simple  statistical  facts  concerning  the  'elimination' 
of  7-day  work  and  the  'reduction'  of  hours  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Gary,  have  been  the  object  of  such  earnest  effort  by  the  Corporation?" 

The  Interchurch  Report  specifically  states  in  its  "Con- 
clusions" in  the  front  of  the  book  and  elsewhere  that  one- 
fourth  of  all  steel  workers  worked  the  7 -day  week.  It  does 
not  attempt,  however,  to  offer  any  concrete  evidence  to 
support  that  specific  figure,  but  rather  depends  on  building 
up  by  "statistics"  or  otherwise,  the  impression  that  a  very 
large  number  of  steel  workers  work  the  7-day  week. 

The  first  method  by  which  the  Interchurch  Report  seeks 
to  build  up  an  impression  of  the  large  amount  of  7-day  work 
in  the  steel  industry  is  through  emphasizing  the  amount  of 
"Sunday  work." 

Of  course  the  only  reason  why  7-day  work  enters  into  the 
problem  of  the  steel  industry  is  because  blast  furnaces  have 
to  be  run  continuously  day  and  night  and  Sundays  in  order 
to  operate  the  industry.     The  only  way  it  is  possible  to 

6 


82       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

operate  and  give  workers  the  6-day  week  is  by  a  special 
extra  swing  crew  which  alternately  takes  the  place  of 
different  men  different  days,  so  that  while  every  man  gets 
one  day  off  every  week,  he  only  gets  one  particular  day  off 
every  six  weeks.  The  existence  of  a  large  amount  of 
Sunday  work  in  certain  departments  therefore,  as  to  which 
the  Interchurch  Report  adduces  much  evidence,  is  no  evi- 
dence at  all  as  to  7-day  work. 

Especially  on  pages  50  through  53  and  frequently  else- 
where, the  Interchurch  Report  specifies  the  working  sched- 
ule of  many  particular  classes  of  workers  as  about  84  hours 
a  week  and  quotes  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  Monthly  Review  for  October,  1919  as  its  authority. 
Here  and  thruout  it  refers  to  these  figures  as  though  they 
represent  normal  working  hours  in  the  steel  industry.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  some  of  these  figures  go  back  to 
June,  19 1 8  before  the  Battle  of  Chateau  Thierry  and  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  statement  accompanying  these  figures 
expressly  states  (page  1092-104)  that: — "It  will  be  seen 
therefore  that  the  schedules  of  64  of  the  73  establishments 
are  for  payroll  periods  in  the  months  of  December  to 
March";  by  far  the  largest  number  (27)  are  for  December, 
1 91 8,  the  first  month  after  the  war,  and  over  two-thirds  are 
for  December  or  January  or  earlier.  In  other  words  these 
figures  which  the  Interchurch  continually  uses  as  for  the 
year  191 9  and  as  representing  normal^  conditions  actually 

'  On  page  50  the  Interchurch  Report  says,  "  Taking  the  statistics  for 
thecenter  of  the  industry,  the  Pittsburg  district,  by  the  departments  of 
plant  for  the  last  quarter  of  19 18  and  the  first  quarter  of  1919  as  compiled 
by  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  (October,  1919,  Monthly  Review)  we 
have  for  the  largest  department  in  the  industry :  stockers,  83.6 ;  larrymen 
82.6;  larrymen's  helpers,  82.3,  etc. "  That  is,  in  relation  to  this  special 
table,  the  exact  period  covered  by  all  the  so-called  1919  statistics  is 
specifically  mentioned  but  in  this  case  they  are  not  referred  to  as  1919 
statistics  and  there  is  nothing,  except  that  they  are  occasionally  referred 
to  as  from  the  same  volume,  which  would  lead  any  but  a  close  student  to 
recognize  or  even  suspect  that  all  further  figures  which  are  stated  as 
1919  and  as  normal  actually  were  for  the  same  period. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         83 

represent,  and  themselves  plainly  state  that  they  represent 
the  period  during  the  war  or  the  first  few  months  immediately 
after  the  armistice,  during  which  period  working  hours  in  all 
basic  industries  were  in  no  way  near  normal.  Moreover  as 
regards  steel,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly 
Review  June,  1920  (page  152  line  6  and  chart)  and  other 
authoritative  studies  all  show  and  state  that  January,  1919 
represented  the  peak  of  steel  war  activities  and  that  the 
return  to  normal  began  in  February,  1919. 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  study 
published  in  its  Monthly  Review  for  October,  1919  gives 
detailed  figures  not  merely  for  "  1919"  but  for  1913,  1914, 
1915,  1917,  and  "  1919."  When  these  figures  are  analyzed 
as  a  whole  it  is  possible  to  see  to  just  what  extent  "  1919" 
figures  were  influenced  by  war  conditions  and  to  what  ex- 
tent they  do  represent  the  normal  trend  of  hours  in  the 
industry.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  show  plainly  that  hours 
in  certain  shorter-hour  departments  increased  but  that 
hours  in  the  12-hour  departments  shortened  diiring  the  war. 
The  point  to  be  noted  here  is  that  they  show  certain  excep- 
tional and  extreme  increases  due  to  the  war  and  that  it  is 
these  extreme  war-condition  cases  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  chiefly  features. 

The  third  argument  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  however, 
in  regard  to  the  7 -day  week,  and  the  one  in  which  it  spe- 
cifically attacks  the  Steel  Corporation  as  the  stronghold  of 
the  7-day  week  in  the  industry,  is  based  on  figures  which 
apply  to  1 9 14,  in  regard  to  which  period  Judge  Gary 
categorically  stated  that  in  all  continuous  operations  in  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation,  where  furnaces  had  to  be 
run  over  Sunday,  the  workers  themselves  worked  only  six 
days,  being  given  some  other  one  day  off  during  the  week. 

The  Interchurch  Report  quotes  on  page  72  as  follows: 

"Statistics  from  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Bulletin  218  (Oct.,  1917) 
reveal  what  actual  successes  were  accomplished  by  the  Corporation  in 
*  eliminating '  7-day  work.  Seven-day  workers  in  blast  furnaces  were  (p. 
17)  1911,  89%;  1912,  82%;  1913,  80%;  1914,  58%;  1915,  59%.    Open 


84       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

hearths  during  this  same  period  about  equally  divided  among  the  7- 
day ;  the  7  and  6  day  alternately,  and  the  6-day  groups.  Even  before 
the  war  the  seven  day  '  eliminating '  waited  on  what  '  steel  demand ' 
decided.  The  best  year's  figures  show  that  the  Corporation  never 
achieved  even  a  half  reform." 

This  argument  and  conclusion  which  specifically  cites  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  for  its  authority  is 
very  interesting.   It  particularly  emphasizes  that : 

"The  best  year's  figures  show  that  the  Corporation  never  achieved 
even  a  half  reform." 

United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Bulletin  218 
(October,  1917),  page  17,  begins: 

"A  blast  furnace  from  the  very  nature  of  its  process  must  be  in  con- 
tinuous operation  day  and  night  7  days  per  week.  In  1907  in  20  plants 
reported  for  that  year  for  97%  of  all  employees  in  the  occupation  con- 
sidered, the  customary  working  time  per  week  was  7  days  .  .  .  but 
since  igio  there  has  been  a  material  reduction  in  7-day  work.  Many  plants 
having  made  provision  to  lay  off  each  employee  in  rotation  one  day  in  7 
(precisely  as  Judge  Gary  described),  thus  making  a  6rday  week  for  the 
employee  while  the  plant  is  continuously  in  operation  7  days." 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  does  not  mention  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  by  name  but  Senate  Document  no 
is  specific  on  this  point.  It  says,  Vol.  Ill,  page  168,  referring 
to  conditions  of  March,  1912: 

"The  plan  was  generally  adopted  by  the  Steel  Corporation.  .  .  . 
In  all  but  one  of  the  plants,  the  plans  have  eliminated  7-day  work  for  all 
but  a  very  few  employees.  In  the  (one)  excepted  plant,  the  plan  for  the 
elimination  of  7-day  work  has  not  been  completely  introduced  .  .  . 
but  in  the  other  blast  furnaces  the  plans  were  so  completely  introduced 
as  practically  to  abolish  7-day  work." 

Bulletin  218  then  gives  the  table  just  as  quoted  in  the 
Interchurch  Report  for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  decrease 
in  hours  in  the  industry  that  was  brought  about  by  these 
many  plants  having  eliminated  the  7-day  week. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        85 

Then  follows  a  summary  showing  that  in  Bessemer  plants 
in  1910,  34%  of  a  certain  group  of  workers  worked  7  days  a 
week  while  in  1913  only  11%  oi  the  same  group  worked  7 
days,  at  the  end  of  which  table  the  Department  of  Labor 
Bulletin  emphasizes  that,  "Throughout  the  9-year  period 
(1907  to  19 1 5)  the  majority  of  employees  in  Bessemer 
Converting  departments  worked  6  days  per  week  while  a  few 
worked  6  and  7  days  in  alternating  weeks."  This  summary 
and  conclusion  the  Interchurch  Report  makes  no  reference 
to. 

The  Interchurch  Report  does,  however,  quote  and  em- 
phasize the  next  paragraph —  that  in  regard  to  the  "  7,  7  and 

6  and  6-day  groups  in  open  hearth  furnace  departments" 
being  about  equally  divided. 

The  next  paragraph  in  this  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin 
says:  "In  all  rolling  mills  the  per  cent  of  employees  working 

7  days  a  week  was  very  small."     This  paragraph  the  Inter- 
church Report  also  ignores. 

Moreover  at  the  end  of  this  section,  4  pages  later,  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin  recapitulates  and  again  em- 
phasizes: "The  very  material  reduction  in  working  hours" 
during  this  period  because  of  the  m^ny  plants  which  had 
gone  from  the  7  to  the  6-day  week. 

In  other  words,  in  trying  to  bolster  up  its  accusations 
against  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  in  regard  to  the 
7-day  week  and  in  a  specific  effort  to  seem  to  disprove  Judge 
Gary's  plain  detailed  statement,  the  Interchurch  Report 
thus  not  only  misinterprets  the  obvious  meaning  of  the 
government  figures  which  it  quotes  in  an  attempt  to  prove 
the  opposite  of  what  is  actually  indicated ;  it  not  only  does 
this  in  face  of  the  plain,  twice-repeated  statement  of  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  itself  as  to  what  these  figures  actu- 
ally show;  but  it  handpicks  this  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
evidence  paragraph  by  paragraph,  publishing  only  the  figures 
or  quotations  which  it  can  misconstrue  and  entirely  leaving 
out  the  intervening  figures  or  statements  which  are  so  plain 
they  cannot  be  thus  misconstrued. 


86       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Number  of  i2-hour  Workers 

In  regard  to  the  12-hour  day  the  Interchurch  Report 
begins  its  whole  discussion  with  the  positive  sweeping 
statement  of  two  conclusions ;  that — 

A.  "Approximately  half  of  the  employees  ofthe  iron  and  steel  manu- 
facturing plants  are  subjected  to  the  schedule  known  as  the  12 -hour  day 
[that  is,  a  working  day,  from  1 1  to  14  hours  long] "  and 

C,  "In  the  past  decade  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  has  increased  the 
percentage  of  its  employees,  subject  to  the  12-hour  day." 

As  the  Interchurch  Report  states  these  two  conclusions 
in  this  order  and  because  it  is  necessary  to  establish  facts 
before  it  is  possible  to  establish  tendencies,  it  is  desirable 
to  treat  these  two  subjects  in  this  order,  irrespective  of 
the  fact  that  in  its  argument  the  Interchurch  Report 
itself  does  not. 

In  attempting  to  establish  its  conclusion  as  to  the  pro- 
portion of  steel  workers  who  work  in  the  12-hour  group  the 
Interchurch  Report — as  in  the  case  of  so  many  other  of  its 
conclusions — ^immediately  finds  itself  confronted  by  a  plain, 
definite,  official  statement  of  the  steel  companies  substanti- 
ally to  the  contrary  of  those  conclusions. 

Judge  Gary  had  testified  before  the  Senate  Committee 
that  for  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  the  number  of  12-hour 
workers  was  69,284  and  that  these  represented  26.5%  of  all 
workers. 

The  Interchurch  Report  at  once  points  out,  and  its 
position  up  to  a  certain  point  is  well  taken,  that  the  total 
employees  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  include  the 
workers  in  its  ore-producing,  coal-producing  and  transpor- 
tation companies.  Although  such  workers  are  most  cer- 
tainly engaged  in  the  production  of  steel  they  are  not  in 
many  instances  working  under  the  same  conditions ;  do  not 
in  general  work  the  same  schedule  of  hours ;  are  not  involved 
in  the  problem  of  continuous  operation,  and  particularly 
were  not  involved  in  the  issues  of  the  steel  strike.  If,  the 
Interchurch    Report    therefore    insists,    consideration    is 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         87 

limited,  as  it  should  be,  to  the  "employees  of  iron  and 
steel  manufacturing  plants"  these  69,284  twelve-hour 
workers  would  represent  not  26.5%  but  36%  of  all  em- 
ployees that  it  is  fair  to  include. 

By  thus  establishing  with  reasonable  plausibility  the 
percentage  of  12-hour  workers  in  the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation  at  36,  the  Interchurch  Report  has  brought 
it  within  14%  of  its  own  figures  as  to  12-hour  workers 
throughout  the  industry.  The  Interchurch  Report  then 
might  have  considered  the  fact  that  the  Steel  Corporation 
employs  less  of  its  facilities  than  many  other  steel  companies 
in  producing  crude  iron  and  steel — in  which  processes  hours 
are  longer  and  the  proportion  of  men  to  output  less — and 
much  more  of  its  facilities  than  many  other  companies  in 
producing  finished  products — in  which  processes  the  hours 
are  shorter  and  the  proportion  of  workers  to  output  greater. 
It  is  obvious  therefore  that  the  United  States  Steel  Corpor- 
ation may  doubtless  have  a  less  proportion  of  12-hour 
workers  than  the  industry  as  a  whole.* 

But  the  fundamental  hypothesis  of  the  whole  Interchurch 
Report,  stated  as  "Stimmarized  Conclusions  No.  i"  and 
repeatedly  throughout,  is  that: 

"  I .  The  conduct  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry  was  determined  by  the 
conditions  of  labor  accepted  by  the  191,000  employees  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation's  manufacturing  plants. 

"2.  These  conditions  of  Labor  were  fixed  by  the  Corporation.  .  .  . 

"Wage  rates  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry  as  a  whole  are  determined 
by  the  rate  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation. " 

— and  in  general  the  Interchurch  Report  insists  on  every 
occasion  that  practically  every  evil  in  the  steel  industry 

'  Mr.  Clayton  L.  Patterson  on  page  64  of  his  pamphlet  on  the  19 19 
steel  strike,  already  referred  to,  gives  the  percentage  of  12-hour  workers 
for  May,  1920  for  20  "independent"  plants  manufacturing  sheet  steel 
(a  more  finished  product)  as  24.66%.  On  the  other  hand  the  number 
of  12-hour  workers  in  11  "independent"  mills  manufacturing  steel  in- 
gots, slabs,  billets — the  cruder  forms  of  steel — was  39.26%.  The  aver- 


88       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

which  it  mentions  is  the  result  of  the  influence  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation — even  going  to  the  lengths,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out  in  the  present  chapter,  of  expurgating  and 
falsifying  the  whole  meaning  of  pages  of  government  statist 
tics  in  order  to  hide  the  fact  that  the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation  took  the  lead  in  eliminating  the  7 -day  week. 

For  the  Interchurch  Report  to  admit,  therefore,  that 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  had,  as  evidence  and 
common  sense  indicate,  a  somewhat  less  proportion  of  12- 
hour  workers  than  the  industry  as  a  whole,  would,  at  least 
to  that  extent,  have  been  to  repudiate  its  first  and  most 
repeatedly  expressed  hypothesis.  Instead,  therefore,  of 
making  any  attempt  to  reconcile  its  conclusions  of  50% 
of  12-hour  workers  in  the  industry  as  a  whole  with  the  differ- 
ent U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  figures,  it  deliberately  takes 
these  figures  for  its  text  and  specifically  builds  up  its  12- 
hour  argimient  around  the  attempt  to  discredit  them. 

The  Interchurch  Report  seeks  to  contradict  Judge  Gary's 
figures  and  establish  its  own  in  three  ways: — first,  by 
elaborate  detail  quotations  and  certain  deductions  of  its 
own  from  the  so-called  191 9  figures  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of 
Labor;  2nd,  by  generalizations  from  certain  alleged  figures 
for  3  particular  steel  plants ;  and  3rd,  by  attempting  to  show 
that  part  of  the  workers  which  the  Steel  Corporation  figures 
specify  as  lo-hour  workers  actually  worked  12  hours 
or  more  on  alternating  shifts  and  therefore  should  be  added 
to  the  percentage  of  12-hour  workers. 

In  regard  to  the  elaborate  statistics  which  the  Inter- 
church Report  gives  through  page  after  page  from  the 
so-called  1919  figures  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics, 
it  need  only  be  pointed  out  again  that  these  figures  are 
particularly  stated  to  have  been  almost  entirely  for  the  first 
one  or  two  months  after  the  war,  a  period  obviously  entirely 

age  number  of  12 -hour  workers  per  total  of  men  employed  for  both 
groups  of  plants  was  30.75%.  These  figures  show  plainly  the  variation 
in  percentage  of  12-hour  workers  in  different  types  of  plants.  They  are 
also  for  a  period  that  is  substantially  normal. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         89 

abnormal  in  steel  as  in  every  other  industry ;  moreover  they 
themselves  give  no  specific  facts  as  to  number  of  12-hour 
workers.  Whatever  these  certain  extreme  figures  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  picks  out  may  or  may  not  show,  or 
whatever  may  or  may  not  be  fairly  deduced  from  them  is 
in  no  sense  conclusive  or  indicative  of  working  hours  even 
for  the  same  department  8  or  10  months  later  or  under 
normal  conditions. 

The  second  method  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
uses  to  try  to  arrive  at  the  percentage  of  12 -hour  workers 
in  the  steel  industry  is  to  attempt  to  generalize  from  three 
special  instances. 

In  one  of  these  cases — for  the  Youngstown  Sheet  and  Tube 
Company — it  states  it  obtained  exact  figures.  This  is  the 
only  case  in  which  it  specifically  states  it  did  obtain  actual 
figures.  These  figures  place  12-hour  workers  at  55%. 
It  next  quotes  a  "verbal  estimate  of  the  President  of  the 
Carnegie  mills,"  alleged  to  have  been  made  "to  the  Inter- 
church Commission  of  Inquiry  in  November,  1919."  It 
states  this  estimate  of  12-hour  workers  was  60%.  Finally, 
it  takes  from  the  Senate  Hearings  Mr.  Oursler's  figures  as 
to  hours  worked  by  different  shifts  in  the  Homestead  plant 
in  which  the  percentage  of  12-hour  workers  is  definitely  given 
as  36,  and  attempts  to  prove  from  these  figures  themselves 
that  the  number  of  12-hour  workers  in  Mr.  Oursler's  plant 
was  actually  52%  instead  of  36%. 

In  view  of  the  well-known  fact,  already  emphasized,  that 
in  certain  departments  of  steel  work  the  percentage  of 
1 2-hour  workers  runs  very  high,  just  as  in  other  departments 
there  is  only  i  ot  2%  of  12-hour  workers  or  no  12-hour  work 
at  all,  the  allegation  that  in  three  special  cases  the  percent- 
age of  12-hour  workers  ran  between  50  and  60 — even  if  that 
allegation  were  entirely  true — obviously  in  no  way  proves 
or  disproves  the  specific  statement  that  for  the  entire  United 
States  Steel  Corporation  the  percentage  of  12-hour  workers 
was  26.5%,  or  the  corollary  of  that  statement  that  for  the 
steel  manufacturing  departments  it  was  36.2%,  which  is  the 


90       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

particular  point  the  Interchurch  Report  insists  on  arguing. 
By  the  same  token,  it  proves  nothing  as  to  averages  in  all 
departments  of  the  "independent"  plants  that  make  up  the 
rest  of  the  industry. 

Moreover  a  few  isolated  figures  from  both  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  study  for  December,  191 8,  and  January, 
1 91 9,  and  the  figures  for  3  special  departments  for  8  months 
later,  each  obviously  represent  such  special  or  limited  con- 
ditions that  even  taken  together  they  cannot  be  regarded 
as  supporting  each  other  to  show  general  normal  conditions, 
and  certainly  not  sufficiently  to  overcome  Judge  Gary's 
and  Mr.  Patterson's  very  specific  and  comprehensive  figures 
to  the  contrary. 

The  third  argument  by  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
seeks  to  substantiate  its  conclusion  that  50%  of  all  steel 
workers  work  the  12-hour  day  is  contained  in  a  footnote  be- 
ginning on  page  49  and  running  through  3  pages.  This  foot- 
note first  quotes  3  brief  sentences  from  a  letter  of  Feb.  13th 
from  Judge  Gary  to  the  Interchurch  Commission  dealing 
with  Mr.  Oursler's  figures  as  to  working  hours  in  the  Home- 
stead mill^  and  a  few  phrases  from  another  letter  of  January 
30th  to  the  Commission  in  regard  to  his  own  figures  for  the 
whole  industry. 

The  classification  of  all  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  employees 
according  to  working  hours  was  officially  stated  as  follows : 

"12  hour  turns 69,284 26.5  % 

10  hour      "     102,902 (39-39%) 

8  hour      "    88,994 (34-1  %) " 

These  figures  do  not  make  any  mention  of  the  exceptional 
worker  who  works  10  and  14  hours  or  11  and  13  hours 
alternate  weeks  but  averages  12  hours  a  day.  It  is  to  be 
presumed  of  course,  in  face  of  the  obvious  facts,  that  such 
workers  are  included  in  this  statement  under  the  12-hour 
workers. 

'Quoted  in  full  in  Senate  Hearings,  page  482,  and  showing  that  at 
that  time  in  that  plant  36%  worked  12  hoiurs,  16.4%  11  hours,  25.9% 
ID  hours  and  21.2%  8  hours. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         91 

The  Interchurch  Report,  however,  raises  the  point  that 
whereas  these  figures  doubtless  include  the  13  and  14-hour 
workers  among  the  12-hour  workers,  it  suspects  that  they 
also  probably  included  the  group  of  workers  who  work  13  or 
14  hours  on  alternating  weeks  but  who  happened  to  be  work- 
ing only  10  or  1 1  hours  the  week  on  which  these  figures  were 
based,  as  lo-hour  workers,  whereas  they  average  12  hours  a 
week  and  shotild  be  added  to  the  12-hour  workers.  It 
appears  from  the  afore-mentioned  footnote  that  the  Inter- 
church Commission  took  this  suspicion  up  with  Judge  Gary 
in  connection  with  Mr.  Oursler's  figures  and  his  own  figures. 
It  also  appears  that  Judge  Gary  answered  these  letters, 
discussing  this  point,  with  regard  to  Mr.  Oursler's  figures 
and  his  own  figures.  From  these  letters  this  footnote 
quotes  a  few  isolated  sentences  and  phrases  from  which  it 
seeks  to  show  that  Judge  Gary  became  so  mixed  up  in  trying 
to  answer  this  point  that  the  figures  which  he  gives  in  reply 
are  a  self-evident  admission  that  the  Interchurch  Report 
suspicions  are  correct.  Therefore  the  Interchurch  Report 
argues,  a  large  proportion  of  his  lo-hour  workers — it  esti- 
mates about  15% — should  be  subtracted  from  his  lo-hour 
workers  and  added  to  his  36.2%  (based  on  steel  manufactiir- 
ing  only)  of  admitted  12-hour  workers,  making  a  total  of 
over  50%  for  the  industry.  The  merits  of  such  an  argu- 
ment cannot  of  course  be  determined  one  way  or  the  other 
from  a  few  isolated  phrases  of  otherwise  tmpublished  cor- 
respondence. From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  however, 
the  following  is  obvious. 

The  Steel  Corporation's  figures  of  course  cannot  attempt 
to  follow  the  various  changes  in  hours  of  the  individual 
worker  but  doubtless  represent  the  hours  being  worked  by 
different  percentages  of  all  workers  at  a  given  time.  The 
most  that  is  possible  therefore  is  that  these  figures  might 
represent  as  lo-hour  workers  that  half  of  the  10  to  14-hour 
workers  (or  11- 13-hour  workers)  which  were  working  10 
hours  at  the  time.  But  in  order  for  these  to  make  up  its 
alleged  50%  of  12-hour  workers,  the  Interchurch  Report 


92       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

must  reckon  this  half  of  uneven  shift  workers — that  is, 
workers  who  work  lo  hours  one  week  and  14  the  next — as 
15%  of  all  workers,  which  would  make  a  total  of  such 
uneven  shift  workers  of  30%  of  all  the  workers  in  the 
industry,  reducing  the  even  12-hour  shift  workers  to  20% 
or  only  two-thirds  of  the  odd  shift  workers.  But  it  is  a 
matter  of  the  commonest  knowledge  and  of  plain  common 
sense  that  the  odd  shift  worker  is  the  exception  and  not 
the  rule,  the  odd  shift  being  a  bookkeeping  and  general 
inconvenience,  only  due  to  special  circumstances.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  number  of  such  workers  is  so  entirely 
negligible  that  neither  the  500-page  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulle- 
tin 218,  entirely  devoted  to  a  minute  and  detailed  study 
of  steel  hours  and  which  does  take  up  the  7.11,^  the  9-  and 
the  ii-hour  classifications,  or  the  U.  S.  Labor  Bulletin  of 
October,  191 9,  or  Judge  Gary  or  Mr.  Patterson  or  any  known 
statistician  in  regard  to  steel  working  hours,  give  any  sepa- 
rate consideration  or  even  mention  to  such  a  class. 

The  strong  probability  is  that  the  official  U.  S.  Steel 
Corporation  figures  included  the  comparatively  small 
number  of  such  odd  shift  workers,  who  are  obviously  12- 
hour  workers,  in  the  12-hour  class.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
Judge  Gary  is  quoted  in  one  of  the  sentences  from  his 
unpublished  letters  to  the  effect  that,  "  The  percentage  given 
of  36%  is  not  correct  if  the  percentage  was  intended  to 
indicate  those  who  work  straight  12-hour  turns.  The  nimi- 
ber  of  these  straight  12-hour  turn  men  is  26%,"  which  indi- 
cates that  odd  turn  men  who  average  12  hours  are  included 
as  a  matter  of  course  under  12-hour  workers.  But  even  if 
they  were  not,  one-half  of  such  odd  turn  workers  could 
hardly  change  the  Steel  Corporation  figures  appreciably. 

Tendency  of  Steel  Hours 

In  addition  to  trying  to  establish  its  conclusion  that 
approximately  50%  of  steel  employees  worked  the  12-hour 

*  42.8  hours  per  week. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        93 

day  by  arguments  based  on  what  it  alleges  were  current 
conditions  the  Interchurch  Report  also  makes  by  far  its 
most  lengthy  and  emphasized  argument  in  regard  to  the 
12-hour  day  as  follows:  It  states  (page  54) : 

"In  May,  1910,  the  percentage  of  employees  working  72  hotirs'  and 
over  per  week,  i.e.  at  least  12  hours  a  day,  was  42.58%  [ibid.  Vol,  I 
p.  xlii]  "    Ibid,  refers  to  Senate  Dociunent  no. 

With  this  42%  established  for  1910  it  then  proceeds  to 
argue  that  steel  hours  in  general  and  12-hour  workers  in 
particular,  had  so  increased  "in  a  decade"  as  to  make  its 
conclusion  that  in  191 9  50%  worked  12  hours  an  inevitable 
conclusion.  The  Interchurch  Report  attempts  to  establish 
this  increase  in  steel  working  hours  in  general  and  in  the 
percentage  of  12-hour  workers  in  particular,  by  voltmiinous 
alleged  quotation  from  Senate  Doctunent  no  and  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Review  October,  1919. 

In  its  general  summary  of  these  alleged  statistics,  the 
Interchurch  Report  says  (page  71) : 

"  ...  we  have  [figures  from  Senate  Doctmient  no  and  October 
Monthly  Review  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics] : 

Average  steel  week — 1910 67.6  hours 

Average  steel  week — 1919 68.7  hours 

"That   is  ten  years   of  reduction  has  increased  the  number  of 
hours.  ..." 
"Take  the  figures  for  1914  and  1919: 

-"  1914  1919 

Common  labor — hours  per  week 70.3  74 

Skilled  and  semi-skilled — hours  per  week 57  66 

All  employees — hours  per  week 66.3  68.7" 

"In  each  classification  the  length  of  the  week  has  increased. " 
"Take  the  seventy-nine  separate  occupations  in  the  steel  industry  for 
which  statistics  are  given  by  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  and 

'  Throughout  this  section  the  Interchurch  Report's  definition  of  12- 
hour  workers,  i.e.  those  working  72  hours  a  week,  and  its  use  of  the  term 
' '  all  employees, ' '  etc. ,  in  connection  with  figures  which  actually  represent 
only  primary  production  departments,  is  necessarily  adopted.  It  will 
be  noted  that  in  the  independent  discussion  of  steel  working  hours  in 
Chapter  XI  a  different  basis  is  used. 


94       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

compare  1914  and  1919.  In  eighteen  classes,  hotirs  have  decreased;  in 
four  remained  stationary ;  in  fifty-seven  of  the  seventy-nine  classes  hours 
per  week  have  increased.  .  .  ."  (Italics  those  of  the  Interchurch 
Report.) 

These  tables,  under  analysis,  show  on  their  face,  without 
reference  to  the  original  figures  which  they  allege  to  quote 
that  they  are  entirely  false  and  manipulated.  The  Con- 
clusions that  are  stated  on  the  basis  of  these  careful  manipu- 
lations are  provably  false  from  merely  a  little  careful  study 
of  the  tables  themselves  just  as  they  are  printed.  When 
reference  is  made  to  the  original  sources  from  which  these 
statistics  are  specifically  quoted,  it  appears  that  from  the 
first  figure  quoted — 67.6  hours  as  the  average  steel  week  in 
1 910,  through  the  last  figure  quoted — that  "in  57  of  the  79 
classes  hours  per  week  have  increased,"  every  single  figure 
as  given,  is  either  in  itself  or  in  its  use  absolutely  false. 
Senate  Document  no  is  the  source  for  all  1910  figures. 
The  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  October,  1919,  study  is  the  sotirce 
for  figures  from  1913  to  "191 9."  Senate  Document  no 
(page  xliii)  gives  6q.8  hours  as  the  average  steel  week  in 
1 9 10,  shows  on  that  page  exactly  how  it  arrives  at  this 
average  and  establishes  and  uses  this  figure  throughout. 
But  69.8  hours  for  1 910  is  so  much  higher  than  any  weight- 
ing or  any  manipulation  outside  of  actual  forgery  can  make 
the  figures  for  "  1919"  even  appear,  that  to  use  the  official 
government  figure  69.8  for  1910  would  at  once  ipso  facto 
disprove  the  whole  Interchurch  Report  argument  that  steel 
hours  were  lengthening.  The  Interchurch  Report  without 
comment,  changes  this  69.8  to  67.6  and  quotes  that  as  the 
official  figure.  The  way  in  which  it  obviously  arrives  at  this 
67.6  is  very  interesting.  Senate  Document  no,  page  xliii, 
gives  its  general  summary  as  to  steel  working  hours  in  1910 
for  14  departments.  This  table  shows  average  working 
hours  in  each  of  these  14  principal  departments,  weighted 
according  to  the  relative  number  of  workers  per  occupation 
within  the  department.  At  the  bottom  of  the  table  is  given 
the  average — weighted  according  to  the  relative  number  of 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         95 

workers  per  department  for  the  industry — 69.8.  This  is 
the  only  average  given  or  suggested  and  it  is  used  through- 
out the  original  document.  By  going  through  those  same 
figures,  however,  and  leaving  in  the  weighting  by  occupa- 
tions but  taking  out  the  weighting  by  departments  the  result 
is  67.6 — the  Interchurch  Report  figure. 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  October,  1919,  study 
gives  the  average  hours  worked  per  week  for  81  occupations 
throughout  the  industry  in  1913,  1914,  1915,  1917  and 
"  1919. "  It  itself  gives  no  averages  for  departments  or  for 
the  industry. 

The  figures  66.3,  given  by  the  Interchurch  Report  table 
as  the  average  working  hours  per  week  for  the  industry  in 
1914,  is  the  straight  mathematical  average  without  any 
weighting  whatever  of  the  working  hours  for  these  81  occu- 
pations for  that  year.  The  unweighted  average  of  the 
working  hours  for  these  same  81  occupations  for  "1919" 
is  66. 1 .  But  this  figure  is  lower  than  even  the  Interchurch 
Report  figure  for  1910  and  also  than  its  figure  for  191 4.  It 
shows  ipso  facto  that  steel  working  hours  were  distinctly 
and  consistently  shortening.  The  Interchurch  Report  by 
heavily  and  illegitimately  over-weighting  these  figures  (see 
chapter  XI)  gets  68.7  and  represents  that  as  an  official 
government  figure  for  average  steel  working  hours  in  "  1919. " 
It  is  of  course  understandable  that  those  lacking  statistical 
training  might  take  government  figures  as  given  and  use 
them  incorrectly.  But  to  be  able  to  detect  that  government 
figures,  which  as  given  refute  a  particular  conclusion  may 
by  re  weighting  of  part  of  the  detailed  statistics,  be  so 
changed  as  to  seem  to  support  that  conclusion,  obviously 
shows  an  intimate  knowledge  of  statistics.  What  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  figure  thus  arrived  at  is  offered  without 
comment  as  the  official  government  figure,  must  be  left  to 
the  judgment  of  the  reader. 

In  connection  with  the  Interchurch  Report's  final  alleged 
quotation  from  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures,  however, 
the  case  is  not  complicated  by  the  question  of  weighting  or 


96       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

any  other  technical  details.    The  Interchurch  Report  states 
that: 

"Take  the  seventy-nine  separate  occupations  in  the  steel  industry 
for  which  statistics  are  given  by  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  and 
compare  1914  and  1919.  In  eighteen  classes  hours  have  decreased;  in 
four  remained  stationary;  in  fifty-seven  of  the  seventy-nine  classes  hours 
per  week  have  increased.  ..." 

The  Interchurch  Report  thus  specifies  the  figures  hy 
occupations  which  is  exactly  the  way  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of 
Labor  study  gives  them.  The  figures  as  the  Interchurch 
Report  alleges  to  quote  them  do  not  in  any  way  remotely 
resemble  the  original  figures.  Not  a  single  figure  is  the 
same  or  near  enough  the  same  to  be  in  any  way  reconciled 
with  the  original.  As  far  as  their  having  any  relation  with 
the  plain  detailed  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  as  to  "total " 
increases  and  decreases  of  steel  working  hours  by  occupa- 
tions, which  they  specifically  allege  to  quote,  the  Inter- 
church figures  are  made  out  of  whole  cloth. 

The  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  study  in  its  Monthly 
Review  for  October,  1919,  to  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
specifically  refers,  is  presented  for  the  express  purpose  of 
showing  the  increases  and  decreases  in  working  hours  for 
various  classes  of  steel  workers  from  191 3  through  the  war. 
The  pages  are  104  to  126.  The  majority  of  the  statistics 
throughout  the  entire  Interchurch  Report  are  taken  from 
these  particular  pages  and  a  comparison  between  the  Inter- 
church figures  throughout  its  12-hour  chapter  and  these 
original  tables  shows  that  those  responsible  for  the  Inter- 
church "statistics"  have  gone  through  these  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Labor  figures  with  a  fine  tooth  comb  to  pick  out  and 
publish  each  extreme  case,  and  are  otherwise  thoroughly 
familiar  with  them. 

The  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  divides  this  study 
into  two  parts.  On  pages  107  to  123  it  lists  the  different 
classes  of  workers  in  6  large  representative  departments  of 
the  steel  industry.    For  each  of  these  81  (not  79)  classes, 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         97 

it  gives  the  ftill  time  working  hours  and  the  hourly  rate  of 
pay  for  the  years  1913,  1914,  1915,  1917,  and  "1919,"  i.e. 
as  already  explained  chiefly  for  December,  191 8  and 
January,  191 9  just  at  the  end  of  the  war  and  at  the  statistical 
peak  of  steel  war  activity.  It  gives  these  detailed  figures 
for  each  such  class  of  workers  in  each  section  of  the  country 
then  for  the  coimtry  as  a  whole. 

On  pages  124,  125  and  126  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  itself  then  recapitulates  and  summarizes  the  rela- 
tive increase  or  decrease  of  working  hours  and  hourly  wage 
rates  for  each  of  these  81  classifications  for  the  whole  coun- 
try, using  percentages  to  make  the  relative  increases  or 
decreases  simpler  and  plainer.  Not  only  are  the  true  facts 
thus  made  as  plain  and  simple  as  they  can  be  made  but  the 
results  are  stated  in  two  different  ways — actual  figvires  and 
percentages — so  that  they  can  be  double  checked. 

The  Open  Hearth  department  is  the  one  in  connection 
with  which  the  Interchiirch  Report  condemns  the  12-hour 
day  most  specifically  and  in  regard  to  which  it  quotes  iso- 
lated figures  and  instances  most  frequently.  The  full  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  figures,  showing  the  relative 
length  of  working  hotirs  for  1913,  1914,  1915,  1917  and 
"  1919"  for  all  classes  of  Open  Hearth  workers  for  the  whole 
country,  are  as  follows: 

U.  S.  BUREAU  OP  LABOR  STATISTICS 

Monthly  Review,  October,  1919,  Page  125 

Open  Hearth  Furnaces 

RELATIVE   FULL   TIME   HOURS 

Occupation  1913   1914   1915   1917   "1919" 

Stockers 100   99    99    100    96 


Stock  Cranemen 

100 

99 
99 

98 
100 

98 
99 

91 
94 

Charging  Machine  Operators 

100 

Malters'  Helpers: 

1st 

100 

98 

98 

99 

91 

2nd 

100 

97 

97 

99 

94 

3rd 

7 

100 

99 

100 

99 

95 

97 

97 

97 

92 

99 

98 

99 

91 

99 

97 

98 

94 

99 

98 

99 

93 

TOO 

lOO 

93 

88 

91 

93 

98 

95 

98       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Occupation  1913       1914       1915      1917      "1919' 

Stopper  Setters 100 

Steel  Pourers 100 

Mold  Cappers 100 

Ladle  Cranemen 100 

Ingot  Strippers 100 

Laborers 100 

It  will  be  noted  that  there  is  not  a  single  class  of  workers 
in  this  entire  12-hour  department  for  the  whole  country 
that  was  not  working  shorter  hours  at  the  height  of  the  war 
period  than  it  worked  in  191 3,  and  only  one  class  which  was 
not  working  shorter  hours  at  the  peak  of  steel  war  activity 
than  in  191 4. 

Figured  on  the  basis  of  the  detailed  tables  of  actual  hours 
given  in  the  first  part,  and  checked  with  the  percentages  given 
in  the  second  part  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
tables,  and  thus  double  checked,  the  increases  and  decreases 
of  steel  working  hours  in  each  of  the  81  given  classifications 
in  the  6  given  departments  between  the  year  191 3  and 
"1919"  (i.e.,  chiefly  in  December,  1918  and  January,  1919 
the  peak  of  steel  war  activity)  were  as  follows: 

"For  all  classes  of  workers  given,  the  hours: 
In  Blast  Furnace, 

4  increased;  10  decreased: 

In  Open  Hearth, 

12  decreased: 
In  Bloom  Mills, 

12  decreased: 
In  Bessemer, 

II  increased;  8  decreased: 

In  Plate  Mills, 

10  increased;  2  decreased: 
In  Sheet  Mills, 

11  increased;  i  remained  same: 
Total  for  all  classes  given, 

36  increased;  i  remained  same;  44  decreased. 

The  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  itself  bases 
its  study  in  both  sections  on  191 3  as  the  norm.     During  the 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE         99 

last  of  1914,  there  was  a  panic;  the  N.  Y.  Stock  Exchange 
closed  for  months;  for  the  latter  months  of  this  year  work 
was  slack  and  fiill  time  hours  in  all  industry  inclined  to  be 
shorter.  For  this  reason  statisticians  generally  use  either 
the  first  part  of  1 914  or  191 3  as  norm  for  this  period  as  does 
the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  in  this  case.  This 
1 914  depression,  however,  means  that  a  comparison  of  hours 
in  any  industry  between  19 14  and  the  end  of  the  war  woidd 
show  the  maximum  variation.  The  Interchurch  Report 
without  comment,  omits  the  191 3  figure  and  uses  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  tables  with  19 14  for  the  norm. 
But  even  on  this  basis  the  results  are  only  slightly  different 
and  do  not  in  any  way  resemble  the  purely  fictitious  statis- 
tics which  the  Interchurch  Report  gives  and  signs  with  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics'  name. 

A  comparison  of  length  of  steel  working  hours  between 
igi4  and  "1919"  made  and  double  checked  on  the  same 
basis  as  above  shows  that : 

"For  all  classes  of  workers  given,  the  hours: 
In  Blast  Furnaces, 

5  increased;  i  remained  same;    8  decreased: 
In  Open  Hearth, 

I  increased;  ii  decreased: 

In  Bloom  Mills, 

I  increased;  •  ii  decreased: 

In  Bessemer, 

ID  increased;  9  decreased: 

In  Plate  Mills, 

12  increased 
In  Sheet  Mills, 

II  increased 

Total  for  all  classes 

40  increased 


1  remained  same; 
given, 

2  remained  same;  39  decreased. 


The  Interchurch  Report  states,  and  signs  the  Btireau  of 
Labor  Statistics'  name  to  the  allegation,  that : 

Sy  increased,  4  remained  stationary;  18  decreased. 

There  isn't  a  single  Interchurch  Report  figure  even  re- 
motely similar  to  the  original  and  no  addition  or  subtraction 


100     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

or  recombination  of  the  component  groups  of  the  original 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  can  make  them  even  approxi- 
mate those  which  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  as  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  figures  nor  are  the  figures  for  any  district 
or  group  as  given  in  the  stated  original.  Both  the  degree  of  the 
discrepancy  and  the  nature  of  the  discrepancy  is  such  that 
there  is  no  possibility  that  it  could  have  been  caused  by  ty- 
pographical or  mathematical  error. 

But  no  study  of  these  voluminous  tables  of  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  can  fail  to  reveal  the  far  more 
serious  discrepancy  between  the  real  government  figures  and 
the  whole  1 2-hour  argument  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
seeks  to  build  up  around  these  very  government  figures 
themselves,  partly  by  thus  making  figures  out  of  whole 
cloth  and  signing  the  government's  name  to  them;  partly 
by  picking  out  the  most  extreme  cases ;  and  partly  through  an 
ingenious  manipulation  and  falsification  of  tables  embody- 
ing these  extreme  figures  which  will^be  emphasized  shortly. 

The  most  obvious  thing  shown  by  the  real  totals  of  the 
original  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  as  to  increases  and 
decreases  of  working  hours  for  all  these  6  representative 
departments  is  that  for  the  whole  8i  occupations  given,  the 
number  in  which  working  hours  increased — between  either 
1913  or  1914  and  the  peak  of  steel  war  activity — and  the 
number  in  which  working  hours  decreased,  were  about  equal. 
The  most  obvious  thing  about  the  tables  themselves — using 
either  1913  or  1914  for  the  norm — is  that  in  the  first  3  de- 
partments the  overwhelming  tendency  was  towards 
decreased  working  hours,  in  the  fourth  the  increases  and 
decreases  about  balanced;  while  in  the  last  two  the  over- 
whelming tendency  was  towards  increased  working  hours 
during  the  war. 

The  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  in  showing  the 
figures  for  6  representative  departments  in  the  industry, 
selects  as  the  first  two — Blast  Furnace  and  Open  Hearth — 
the  chief  12-hour  departments  of  the  industry.  Its  tables 
for  these  two  12-hour  departments  (pages  lo^ axiAiioibid.) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       loi 

show  that  for  all  classes  of  workers  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, the  working  hours  for  the  years  given  (191 3-1 91 9)  in- 
creased or  decreased  as  follows : 

12.HOUR  DEPARTMENTS 


Blast  Furnace. 
Open  Hearth . . 


Hours 
ncreased 

Remained 
Same 

Hours 
Decreased 

4 

10 
12 

Total 4  ^  22 

In  thus  giving  figures  for  representative  departments  qf 
the  steel  industry  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
next  selects — ^in  the  Bloom  Mill,  Bessemer,  and  Plate  Mill 
departments — three  departments  which  represent  the 
"middle  section"  as  to  working  hours,  including  chiefly 
ID-  and  1 1 -hour  workers  but  including  also  some  8-hour  and 
some  12-hour  workers.  Summaries  of  all  the  figures  given 
on  pages  no  to  121  of  the  Monthly  Review,  October,  1919, 
for  these  departments,  show,  for  all  classes  of  workers  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  (i9i3-"i9i9"),  the  following: 

"  MIDDLE  GROUP  "  DEPARTMENTS 


Bloom  Mills 

Hours 
Increased 

Remained 
Same 

Hours 
Decreased 

12 

Bessemer 

Plate  Mills 

II 

10 

8 

2 

Totals 21  22 

These  middle  group  departments,  as  stated,  are  made  up 
of  8,  ID,  II,  and  12  hour  workers.  Of  the  43  occupations 
of  this  group,  12  were  working  approximately  12  hours  (70 
hours  or  more  per  week)  in  191 3.  For  all  such  workers 
increases  and  decreases  of  hours  were  as  follows: 

Bloom  Mill:  1913  "1919" 

Heaters 71.2  67.5 

Bottom  Maker 71 .9  64.9 

"  "       Helper 72  67.4 

Laborers 73.1  69.6 


102     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Bessemer: 

Bottom  Makers 73.8  64.8 

Bottom  Makers  Helpers 73.1  70.3 

Ladle  Liners  Helpers 70.9  71.6 

Stopper  Makers 70.6  70 

Laborers 75.2  71. i 

Plate  Mill: 

Charging  Mach.  Oper 70.7  71. i 

Roll  Engineers 72,4  72.1 

Heaters 71,7  70.6 

2  increased,  10  decreased 


Of  all  the  81  occupations  for  which  detailed  figures  as  to 
working  hours  are  thus  given  by  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
study,  14  occupations  in  blast  furnaces,  12  occupations  in 
the  open  hearth,  and  12  occupations  in  the  "middle  group" 
departments — a  total  of  38  occupations — worked  approxi- 
mately 1 2  hours  a  day  in  1 91 3.  Of  all  these  the  working  hours 
for  6  increased  in  "191 9"  the  peak  of  steel  war  activity, 
while  working  hours  for  J2  of  the  38  decreased. 

Moreover  among  the"  entire  81  occupations  given,  there 
is  no  case  shown  of  any  group  of  workers  which  worked  less 
than  12  hours  in  191 3  having  become  12-hour  workers  even 
at  the  peak  of  steel  war  activity. 

In  this  connection  it  is  also  interesting  to  note  that  in  all 
81  occupations  given,  in  only  6  did  hours  increase  more  than 
5%  even  at  the  height  of  war  activity.  The  largest  increase 
was  that  for  the  Bessemer  Stopper  Setter  who  worked  51.6 
hours  in  1913,  50.7  hours  in  1914,  51.5  hours  in  1915,  49.6 
in  1 91 7,  and  then  jumped  to  59.8  at  the  peak  of  war  activity. 
The  second  largest  increase — 9% — was  for  blast  furnace 
common  labor  which  had  previously  worked  consistently 
12  hours  or  less  a  day  6  days  a  week  but  which  during  the 
height  of  war  activity  averaged  about  half  a  day  on  Sunday. 
Sheet  Mill  Shearmen  Helpers  also  increased  their  working 
hours  by  9%  going  from  42.9  hours  per  week  to  46.6  at  the 
height  of  war  activity.     Bessemer  Cupola  Tappers  and 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       103 

Bessemer  Vesselmen  Helpers  increased  their  hours  by  8% 
and  Mold  Cappers  by  7%,  the  increases  being  from  54  to  59 
hours,  from  56  to  61,  and  from  57  to  61  hours  respectively 
at  the  height  of  war  activity. 

Finally  in  giving  figures  for  6  representative  departments 
of  the  i'ndustry  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  selects 
one  of  the  short  hour  departments — the  Sheet  Mill  where 
normal  working  hours  are  42.8  per  week.  Detailed  figures 
as  to  working  hours  for  this  whole  department  appear  on 
page  76  of  the  present  analysis. 

It  is  entirely  apparent  then  in  regard  to  this  general  con- 
clusion of  the  Interchurch  Report,  alleging  that  for  the 
separate  occupations  in  the  steel  industry  for  which  statis- 
tics are  given  by  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  .  .  . 
in  eighteen  classes  hours  have  decreased;  in  fovir  remained 
stationary  (and)  in  57  .  .  .  increased,  that  it  is  not  only 
made  out  of  whole  cloth  and  states  almost  the  opposite  of 
what  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  actually  show;  but 
it  is  equally  plain  that  the  whole  conclusion  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  seeks  to  draw  from  these  figures,  namely 
that  the  percentage  of  12-hour  workers  is  increasing,  is  the 
opposite  of  the  facts.  The  facts  are  that  for  all  the  38 
12-hour  occupations  given  for  all  departments  given,  in  only 
6  did  hours  increase  while  for  32  hours  decreased.  It  is 
equally  clear  that  the  departments  whose  working  hours 
did  increase  during  the  war  were  the  shorter  hour  depart- 
ments. 

So  much  for  the  years  1913  or  1914 — to  "  1919. " 

Tt  will  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  Interchurch 
Report  in  seeking  to  emphasize  the  increase  in  the  per- 
centage of  12-hour  workers  repeatedly  insists  that  steel 
working  hours  have  lengthened  over  a  decade.  On  page 
46  it  states : 

"Examination  of  government  statistics  .  .  .  proves  that  the  hours  in 
the  steel  industry  have  actually  lengthened  since  iQio  .  .  .  (and  that 
the  industry  has  shown  an)  unrestricted  tendency  toward  lengthened 
hours." 


104     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

And  again  (page  56) : 

"  Five  yeaxs  ago  the  steel  week  was  2.4  hours  shorter;  ten  years  ago  i.i 
hours  shorter.    Steel  hours  have  lengthened  in  a  decade. " 

But  this  very  statement  contradicts  itself  and  the  Inter- 
church  Report's  whole  hypothesis  that  steel  hours  "have 
lengthened"  and  shown  an  "unrestricted  tendency  to 
lengthen,"  etc.,  "in  a  decade"  for  it  itself  states  that  steel 
hours  actually  shortened  by  1.3  a  week  during  the  first  half 
of  the  decade  and  right  up  into  the  war.  Moreover  this  fact 
is  entirely  apparent  in  every  table  the  Interchurch  Report 
gives  in  regard  to  these  years. 

There  are  two  particular  tables  it  will  be  remembered 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  uses  to  attempt  to  clinch  this 
argument  that  steel  hours  in  general,  and  the  nimiber  of 
12  hour-workers  in  particular,  have  increased  over  a  decade. 
They  are  as  follows  (page  71) : 

"...  we  have  [figures  from  Senate  Document  1 10  and  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Review,  October,  1919] : 

Average  steel  week  1910 67.6  hours 

Average  steel  week  1919 68.7  hours 

"That  is  ten  years  of  reduction  has  increased  the  number  of  hours " 

"Take  the  figures  for  1914  and  1919: 

1914  1919 

Gjmmon  labor  hours  per  week 70.3  74 

Skilled  and  semi-skilled  hours  per  week. . .      57  66 

All  employees  hours  per  week 66.3  68.7" 

"In  each  classification  the  lengtb  of  the  week  has  increased. " 

The  first  thing  to  be  noted  about  these  two  tables  is  that, 
just  as  in  all  similar  cases,  they  group  statistics  for  1 910  and 
"191 9"  separately  from  statistics  for  191 4  and  "1919"  so 
that  the  figures  for  191  o  and  191 4  never  appear  together. 
In  other  cases  the  Interchurch  Report  separates  by  16  or  18 
pages  the  group  1910  and  "  1919"  from  the  group  1914  and 
"  1919. "  In  this  case  it  will  be  noted  these  two  groups  are 
put  in  an  entirely  different  form.   The  second  is  complicated 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       105 

by  two  other  groups  of  figures  and  the  common  denomina- 
tor in  the  two  tables  is  called  "average  steel  week"  in  one, 
and  "all  employees"  in  the  other.  Taking  the  figures  for 
this  common  denominator  however,  just  as  they  appear  in 
these  tables,  and  putting  them  in  their  nattural  chronological 
order,  the  following  appears 

"Average  steel  week"  "all  employees"  1910 67.6  hours 

"Average  steel  woek"  "all  employees"  1914 66.3  hours 

"Average  steel  week"  "all  employees"  "  1919" 68.7  hours 

In  other  words  these  very  figures  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  publishes  show  on  their  face  that  the  Inter- 
church Report's  whole  argument  about  the  tendency  of 
steel  hours  to  lengthen  over  a  decade  is  untrue  because  they 
show  on  their  face  that  for  the  first  half  of  the  decade,  and 
up  into  the  war,  steel  hours  actually  shortened. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  figure  which 
Senate  Docimient  no  itself  gives  as  the  average  steel  week 
in  1910  is  not  67.6  hours  but  is  69.8  hours,  and  that  the  Inter- 
church Report  obviously  arrives  at  this  67.6  which  it  gives, 
by  a  partial  reweighting  of  the  original  government  statis- 
tics. It  has  also  been  pointed  out  that  the  Interchurch 
figure  of  66.3  hours  as  the  average  steel  week  for  1914 
represents  a  plain  mathematical  average  without  any 
weighting  at  all,  while  its  figure  of  68.7  for  "  1919"  is  made 
two  hours  higher  than  the  unweighted  average  by  a  heavy, 
illegitimate  over-weighting.  Fortunately,  however,  the  proof 
of  the  absolute  falsity  of  these  figures  does  not  depend 
on  technical  discussions  of  involved  statistical  methods 
because  that  falsity  becomes  entirely  obvious  the  moment 
the  Interchurch  Report  attempts  to  use  those  figures  in  any 
detail,  as  it  does  in  the  second  table  above. 

It  will  be  noted  that  there  are  two  extra  sets  of  figures  in 
the  second  Interchurch  Report  table  under  discussion — 
those  in  the  first  line  alleging  that  in  "  1919  "  common  labor 
worked  3.7  hours  a  week  longer  than  in  1914,  and  those  in 
the  second  line  alleging  that  skilled  and  semi-skilled  steel 


I06     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

workers  worked  9  hours  a  week  longer  in  "  1919"  than  in 
1914.  Common,  and  skilled  and  semi-skilled  labor  of 
course  make  up  all  the  classes  of  which  "all  employees"  are 
composed.  The  unweighted  average  between  the  3.7  by 
which  common  labor  hours  are  stated  to  have  thus  increased 
a  week,  and  the  9  hours  by  which  skilled  and  semi-skilled 
hours  are  thus  stated  to  have  increased  a  week,  is  6.3  hours. 
But  the  number  of  classifications  of  all  workers  given  by  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  statistics,  and  which  enter  into  the 
averages,  run  from  1 1  to  18  for  skilled  and  semi-skilled  to  i 
for  common  labor.  In  other  words  any  "weighting' '  on  this 
basis  must  be  all  in  favor  of  the  9  hours.  Also  there  are  of 
course  more  skilled  and  semi-skilled  workers  than  common. 
The  Interchurch  Report  itself  insists  on  page  92  that  the 
proportion  is  61.9%  for  skilled  and  semi-skilled  to  38.1% 
for  common.  Again  any  "weighting"  must  be  entirely  in 
favor  of  the  9.  In  other  words,  the  first  two  lines  of  this 
table  show  an  average  increase  of  working  hours  for  all 
classes  of  steel  workers  between  1914  and  "  1919"  of  some- 
thing above  6.3  hours  a  week.  Yet  the  next  line  of  this  same 
Interchurch  Report  table  specifically  says  that  the  increase 
for  all  workers  was  from  66.3  to  68.7  or  just  2.4  hoiirs. 
There  is  no  possible  average  between  3  and  9  that  makes  2. 

Plainly  then  these  figures,  which  are  specifically  quoted  as 
from  the  "  October  Monthly  Review  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics"  are  not  only  fictitious  in  that  they  do  not  them- 
selves appear  among  the  original  government  figures;  in 
that  they  specifically  contradict  everything  that  the  original 
government  figures  do  show,  and  therefore  cannot  by  any 
legitimate  means  have  been  derived  from  the  original  figures, 
but  by  assuming  to  show  that  the  average  between  3  and  9  is 
2  they  are  fictitious  on  their  face. 

The  12-hour  argument  is  the  one  most  emphasized 
throughout  the  entire  Interchurch  Report.  It  has  been  the 
most  widely  emphasized  and  quoted  in  connection  with  the 
Interchurch  Report.  The  second  volume  of  the  Interchurch 
Report,  appearing  a  year  and  a  half  after  the  Report  proper, 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        107 

again  particularly  stresses  its  12-hour  allegation.  The  very 
great  publicity  given  this  argument  as  well  as  its  own  im- 
portance warrant  particular  emphasis  being  placed  on  the 
fact  that  it  is  based  throughout  on  the  above  type  of  "evi- 
dence, "  presented  with  a  constant,  studied  ingeniousness  in 
seeking  to  achieve  surface  plausibility,  and  bound  together 
largely  with  insinuations  and  sensational  anonymotis 
statements. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  NATURE  OF  TWELVE-HOUR  WORK 

On  page  64  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  from  an  in- 
dividual anonymous  steel  worker's  diary,  as  follows: 

"You  lift  a  large  sack  of  coal  on  your  shoulders,  run  toward  the  white- 
hot  steel  in  a  100- ton  ladle,  must  get  close  enough  without  burning  your 
face  off  to  hurl  the  sack,  using  every  ounce  of  strength,  into  the 
ladle  and  run,  as  flames  leap  to  roof  and  the  heat  blasts  everything 
to  the  roof.  Then  you  rush  out  to  the  ladle  and  madly  shovel  man- 
ganese into  it,  as  hot  a  job  as  can  be  imagined."  "And  this,"  adds 
the  Interchurch  Report,  "is  not  the  worst  of  his  daily  grind. " 

The  Senate  Committee  went  particularly  into  the  ques- 
tion of  the  nature  of  the  12-hour  work,  and  brought  out  the 
point  strongly  through  the  testimony  of  various  steel 
officials  and  12-hour  workers  themselves — including  strikers 
— that  such  work  was  far  from  continuous. 

"Mr.  Gary  submitted  to  the  Senate  Committee  photographs  of  open 
hearth  laborers  at  leisure,' '  says  the  Interchurch  Report  on  page  64,  "and 
asserted  that  they  worked  but  half  the  time.  This  hardly  accords  with 
the  open  hearth  laborer  himself. " 

It  is  in  specific  answer  to  at  least  this  part  of  the  Senate 
evidence  and  to  its  own  question,  "What  kind  of  jobs  are 
these  12-hour  turns,"  that  the  Interchurch  Report  published 
this  quotation  "from  a  worker's  diary"  as  part  of  five 
pages  of  similar  quotations  interspersed  with  generalizations 
from  them  in  which  it  seeks  to  picture  the  steel  mill  as  a 
veritable  inferno  of  flaming  furnaces  and  molten  metal  and 
of  the  crash  and  grind  of  "man-killing"  machines,  in  the 

108 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       109 

midst  of  which  the  worker  slaves  to  the  point  of  "daily 
exhaustion"  and  "old  age  at  forty." 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Report  devotes 
much  attention  to  building  up  such  an  impression  of  steel 
work  and  largely  on  the  basis  of  this  impression  character- 
izes steel  hours  as  "relics  of  barbarism"  and  demands  that 
the  church  and  the  public  and  the  government  join  with 
"organized"  labor  in  forcing  their  change,  it  is  particularly 
pertinent  to  examine  the  evidence  on  which  it  contradicts 
much  of  the  Senate  evidence  and  attempts  to  support  its 
charges. 

Throughout  this  chapter  and  in  fact  throughout  the 
whole  volume,  the  Interchurch  Report  reiterates  such 
charges  as  that ' '  steel  is  a  man-killer ' ' —  that ' '  absentee  cor- 
poration control"  tends  "inevitably  to  sacrifice  the  labor 
force" — that  it  is  steel  policy  to  "grind  the  faces  of  the 
hunkies, "  etc.,  but  its  "evidence"  consists  of  these  five 
pages  of  quotations  from  "workers*  diaries." 

These  "diaries"  are  presented  in  15  separate  quotations, 
spread,  with  intervening  comment  and  argimient,  over  pages 
60  through  64  and  it  appears  upon  careful  examination  that 
all  of  them  are  parts  of  the  diaries  of  two  men.  There  is  no 
question  that  taken  at  face  value,  these  diaries  constitute 
the  bitterest  arraignment  of  the  conditions  they  describe. 
Moreover  the  first  diary  is  alleged  to  describe  not  merely 
the  author's  own  experience  but  is  expressly  featured  as 
"the  observations  of  a  keen  man  on  how  his  fellows  regard 
the  job,"  and  the  second  diary  is  specifically  featured  as 
describing  general  working  conditions.  The  second  alleged 
author,  while  stating  that  the  conditions  described  were  in 
an  "independent"  and  not  a  Steel  Corporation  plant,  also 
states  that  he  worked  for  the  Corporation  and  alleges  that 
conditions  there  were  even  more  harrowing. 

The  Interchurch  Report  especially  emphasizes  that  the 
first  of  these  diaries  "was  in  the  spring  of  191 9,  before  the 
strike  or  this  inquiry  and  selected  here  because  no  charge  of 
exaggeration  could  be  made  concerning  it"  and  repeats 


no  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

again  in  regard  to  both  of  them  that  "these  workers'  records 
were  made  before  the  strike  began  and  are  open  to  no 
possible  charge  of  bias."  But  of  course  the  strike  agitation 
was  at  its  height  during  this  period. 

The  Interchurch  Report  also  especially  emphasizes  that — 
"both  of  these  workers  were  distinctly  critical  of  labor 
organizers."  The  Interchurch  Report,  however,  in  other 
sections  emphasizes  that  many  of  the  strikers  were  distinctly 
critical  of  their  leaders  as  too  conservative.  The  Interchurch 
Report  does  not  state  that  these  alleged  authors  were  not 
strikers  or  in  any  way  connected  with  the  strike  movement 
which  would  be  the  simplest  way  of  stating  as  a  fact  what  it 
tries  to  convey  as  an  impression.  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
these  five  pages  of  quotations  constitute  the  chief  evidence 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  produces  to  show  that  1 2-hour 
steel  work  is  a  "relic  of  barbarism, "  which  the  church  and 
the  public  and  the  government  should  unite  in  abolishing, 
and  particularly  in  view  of  the  fact  that  not  only  statements 
but  quotations  of  the  Interchurch  Report  have  already  been 
shown,  when  compared  with  the  actual  facts  or  with  the 
sources  of  the  quotation,  to  be  highly  misleading,  meticulous 
inquiry  into  the  actual  value  of  such  major  "evidence"  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  unjustified. 

Again  these  diaries  are  anonymous.  This  fact  may  be 
explained  on  the  ground  of  protecting  the  authors.  On 
the  other  hand  it  is  well  known  that  strike  agitators  were 
busy  both  before  and  during  the  strike,  creating  or  highly 
exaggerating  and  coloring  "evidence"  of  all  kinds  for  prop- 
aganda uses.  When  many  of  the  "statements  and  affidav- 
its of  500  steel  workers  [which]  constitute  the  rock  bottom 
evidence  of  the  [Interchurch]  findings,"  as  these  are  pub- 
lished in  the  Second  Volume,  are  analyzed,  it  appears,  as 
will  be  shown  later  in  detail,  that  they  consist  in  large  part 
of  such  doctored  propaganda  "evidence,"  originated  and 
circulated  for  such  propaganda  purposes,  yet  published  by 
the  Interchurch  Report  as  "rock  bottom  evidence,"  even  in 
some  cases  after  the  "author"  under  oath  and  cross-exami- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       in 

nation  by  the  Senate  Committee  had  admitted  the  essential 
falsity  of  his  whole  previous  statement.  ^ 

Moreover  in  certain  very  significant  particulars  the 
second  of  these  diaries  closely  parallels  other  standard 
propaganda  "evidence"  that  was  widely  circulated  in 
preparation  for  and  during  the  strike  in  that  it  gets  a  large 
part  of  its  effect  through  vivid  insinuation  rather  than  direct 
statement  that  can  be  directly  controverted.  One  of  the 
most  widely  circulated  strike  propaganda  documents,  for 
instance,  contains  the  statement  that  the  author  "person- 
ally walked  out  into  the  middle  of  the -street  to  stop  these 
men  (police)  and  ask  them  what  did  they  mean  by  clubbing 
peaceful  worshippers  leaving  the  church"  and  one  of  the 
Interchurch  Report's  own ' '  rock  bottom  affidavits' '  declares : 
"  there  was  no  provocation  for  (the  police)  .  .  .  riding  over 
women  and  children."  Yet  under  oath  and  cross-exami- 
nation it  was  admitted  that  the  first  man  never  saw  anybody 
clubbed  and  only  knew  of  one  man  being  clubbed  during 
the  strike  and  in  the  second  case,  it  was  admitted  that  no 
women  or  children  were  actually  ridden  over  or  hurt  at  all. 
This  Interchurch  "diary"  keeps  repeating,  "it  is  easy  for  a 
man  to  get  badly  burned" — "it  is  easy  to  burn  your  face 
off  " — "  operations  if  performed  in  wrong  order,  stove  tender 
will  break  his  stove  and  kill  himself" — "unless  tremendous 
pressure  is  first  blown  off  the  opening  of  another  valve  will 
blow  operators  to  bits,"  etc.,  etc.,  without  even  alleging  that 
any  man  ever  did  actually  get  "his  face  burned  off"  or 
"get  blown  to  bits,"  etc.  To  any  one  who  has  read  the 
"statements"  and  "affidavits"  after  "statements"  and 
affidavits  in  the  Interchurch  second  volume  which  consist 
of  the  most  harrowing  insinuations  and  exclamations  but 
which  carefully  avoid  actually  alleging  a  single  fact  this 
similar  method  of  getting  an  impression  without  any  direct 
statement  cannot  pass  unnoticed.^ 

Again  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  the ' '  author  "  of  this 
"diary"  as  insisting  that  in  a  "former  job"  "last  spring" — 

'  See  chapter  XXIII  present  analysis. 


112     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"everyone  in  the  department  works  14  working  days  out  of  every 
foixrteen  calendar  days,  on  the  13-hour  night  turn,  including  the  24-hour 
turn  within  the  14  days"  ...  a  "total  104  hours  (including  din- 
ner), .  .  .  107  hours  under  the  plant  roof  in  the  168  hours  in  the  week.  V 

Such  an  allegation  as  to  hours — over  15  hours  a  day  7  days  a 
week,  for  a  whole  steel  department,  goes  so  far  beyond  even 
any  other  allegation  which  has  been  made  public  that  in 
spite  of  the  Interchurch  Report's  insistence  that  this  "diary" 
"is  open  to  no  possible  charge  of  bias,"  it  seems  unfortunate 
that  other  evidence  as  to  such  working  hours  for  a  whole 
department  should  not  have  been  immediately  gathered  by 
some  of  the  15  Interchurch  investigators  which  would  not 
have  had  to  be  presented  unsupported  and  anonymously. 

But  whatever  credence  the  individual  reader  may,  under 
the  circumstances,  choose  to  place  in  such  evidence,  the  fact 
cannot  be  overlooked  that  even  this  bitterly  hostile  witness 
admits  the  highly  intermittent  nature  of  12-hour  work.  He 
does  this  indirectly  by  complaining  that  he  does  not  always 
have  "four  or  five  hours  to  himself"  or  that  cleaning  a  blast 
furnace  stove,  a  hot  job  but  one  which  from  the  very  na- 
ture of  blast  furnace  operation  is  never  done  more  than  once 
in  6  days,  takes  "from  ten  minutes  to  one  hour,"  etc. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  evidence  is  plain  that  work  in  the 
primary  departments — where  the  12-hour  day  exists — is 
inherently  intermittent  and,  from  its  very  nature  cannot  be 
"consciously  speeded  up"  because  of  "war"  or  "steel  de- 
mand" or  for  any  other  reason. 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Labor  Review 
for  June,  1920  contains  a  study  of  "hazard"  in  the  steel  in- 
dustry. This  was  a  study  of  conditions  during  war  times 
when  of  course  all  the  "speeding  up  "  possible  was  done,  yet 
referring  specifically  to  191 8  this  bulletin  emphasizes  on 
page  156-1462: 

"  The  operation  of  such  mills  as  are  here  grouped — namely,  blast  fur- 
tiaces,  steel  works  (open  hearth  and  Bessemer  furnaces)  and  rolling 
mills — are  necessarily  of  a  rather  leisurely  character  and  cannot  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  be  hurried  sufficiently  to  increase  greatly  the  hazard  of 
the  individual  man." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       113 

— ^by  exactly  the  same  token  these  processes  are  "neces- 
sarily'' of  such  a  ''leisurely  character''  that  they  "can^iot 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  hurried  sufficiently  to"  change 
greatly  the  leisurely  character  of  the  work  involved. 

How  "leisurely" — that  is  how  highly  intermittent,  such 
work  actually  is,  is  plain  even  from  the  most  casual  knowl- 
edge of  the  operations  of  these  great  12-hour  departments^ 
and  is  brought  out  particularly  clearly  in  the  Senate 
Hearings  and  other  government  studies. 

Mr.  S.  E.  Wilson,  heater  in  the  Gary  Mill,  testified 
(Senate  Hearings,  Part  H,  page  1046) : 

Senator  Phipps:  How  many  hburs  a  day  do  you  work? 

Mr.  Wilson:  Twelve  hours. 

Senator  Phipps:  Is  that  continuous? 

Mr.  Wilson:  Oh,  no,  I  suppose  my  work  is  so  I  could  do  it  all  in  four 
or  five  hours  if  it  could  be  so  arranged.  It  is  not  any  physical  work  I 
have  to  do. 

'  The  author  of  the  present  analysis  lived  during  boyhood  in  a  suburb 
adjoining  the  South  Chicago  plant  of  the  Illinois  Steel  Company.  The 
older  members  of  a  large  proportion  of  neighbor's  families  worked  in  the 
steel  mills.  Many  of  his  boyhood  friends,  including  his  brother,  worked 
during  their  high  school  vacations  in  the  mills — his  brother,  as  a  com- 
mon laborer  in  the  open  hearth  department.  The  author  remembers 
distinctly  that  there  was  great  competition  for,  and  every  possible  pull 
was  exercised  by  these  boys  to  get  on  the  straight  night  shift,  because 
they  were  almost  invariably  able  to  get  from  3  to  5  hours'  sleep  on  this 
shift  so  that  after  three  or  four  more  hours'  sleep  in  the  morning  they 
had  the  rest  of  the  day  free.  During  his  last  year  in  high  school,  the 
author's  brother  had  the  opportunity  to  continue  indefinitely  on  night 
shift  work  and  argued  with  his  parents  to  be  allowed  both  to  go  to  high 
school  and  work  this  shift  on  the  ground  that  he  could  get  practically 
enough  sleep  due  to  the  intermittent  nature  of  the  12-hour  night  work. 

It  is  notorious  that  steel  towns  are  great  baseball  towns,  a  big  extra 
patronage  always  being  derived  from  the  night  shift  workers  who  nor- 
mally are  up  by  noon,  and  have  the  afternoon  free.  The  United  States 
Steel  Corporation,  as  part  of  its  welfare  work,  has  equipped  and  main- 
tains 103  baseball  fields,  one  for  practically  every  community  in  which 
it  has  a  plant.  These  fields  are  extremely  popular.  Their  large  use  up 
to  five  o'clock  on  week-day  afternoons  is  obviously  by  the  night  shift 
workers. 


114     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Mr.  Jospeh  Smith,  a  roller  in  the  Homestead  Mills, 
stated  (Senate  Report,  Vol.  I,  page  455) : 

"  My  age  is  58  years  old  ...  I  have  been  standing  a  12-hour  day  for 
the  last  33  years  .  .  .  and  while  I  do  not  work  pretty  hard  at  times,  at 
times  I  do  work  pretty  hard  .  .  .  but  we  do  not  actually  work  the  12 
hours.  We  have  a  rest  for  lunch  at  9 :  30  and  again  at  12 :  30  and  in  the 
afternoon  we  stop  to  adjust  things  aroimd  the  mills." 

During  their  personal  visit  to  the  steel  centers,  the 
Senate  Committee  carefully  interrogated  Superintendent 
August  Mann  of  the  American  Steel  and  Wire  Works  at 
Denora  in  regard  to  this  point  as  follows  (Senate  Hearings, 
page  714-715): 

"Senator  Stirling:  Is  that  same  thing  true  with  other  workmen  who 
work  the  12  hours? 

"Mr.  Mann:  Well,  they  work  one  half  hour  and  they  rest  one  half 
hour; — the  roll  hands. 

"  Chairman:  And  do  they  have  anything  to  do  during  that  half  hour? 

"Mr.  Mann:  They  work  a  half  hour  and  another  man  takes  their 
position  the  other  half  hour. 

"  Chairman:  Can  they  go  outdoors  for  a  half  hour  if  they  wish? 

"Mr.  Mann:  Yes,  sir,  the  roll  hands — the  'sticker-in.' 

"Senator  Phipps:  Take  the  other  men  that  work  the  1 2  hoiu-s  a  day — 
other  than  the  rollers,  they  have  one  half  hour  of  rest  and  one  half  hour 
of  work? 

"Mr.  Mann:  Yes,  sir.  Now  the  other  men,  they  take  their  spells 
out  at  any  given  time.  A  great  many  of  them  will  sit  down  at  nine 
o'clock  and  take  lunchr'A  great  many  of  them  will  go  out  to  the  drink- 
ing fountain  and  sit  down  there.  There  is  no  time  given  for  that  but 
they  will  take  their  rest. 

"  Chairman:  But  they  are  on  duty  all  this  time,  are  they  not? 

"  Mr.  Mann:  They  are  on  duty  all  of  this  time. 

"  Chairman:  Subject  to  call? 

"Mr.  Mann:  Yes,  sir." 

Even  Mr.  Oscar  Edward  Anderson,  President  of  the 
Hustler  Lodge  Nimiber  36  of  the  Amalgamated  Association 
of  Iron  Steel  and  Tin  Workers,  and  Chairman  of  the  Allied 
Iron  and  Steel  Workers'  Council  in  Gary,  which  had  charge 
of  the  strike  in  Gary,  though  he  tried  to  evade  and  qualify 
on  this  point,  finally  admitted  under  cross-examination 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  959) : 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       115 

"Mr.  Anderson:  But  a  guide  setter  does  his  work  whenever  he  gets 
a  chance — whenever  the  mill  stops  rolling  for  a  few  minutes  or  something 
like  that  and  the  rest  of  the  time  he  would  be  continually  there  and 
watching  so  that  if  anything  happens  he  can  immediately  attend  to  it. 

"Senator  Phipps:  Yes,  it  is  not  continuous  but  is  variable  according 
to  the  conditions  of  the  operation? 

"Mr.  Anderson:  Yes,  sir." 

This  statement  of  Mr.  Mann  was  made  to  the  Senate 
Committee  while  it  was  in  the  strike  area,  visiting  the 
different  mills  and  taking  a  far  greater  volimie  of  testimony 
— often  on  the  same  points — from  workers  or  strikers  than 
from  their  employers.  It  is  hardly  possible,  therefore,  for 
even  the  most  hostile  critic  to  doubt  that  Mr.  Mann's  state- 
ments were  accurate  at  least  as  regards  conditions  in  his  own 
plant.  Mr.  Anderson's  statement  is  of  course  the  admission 
of  a  hostile  witness.  The  question  remains  as  to  how  far 
conditions  thus  described  are  representative  of  conditions 
throughout  the  industry. 

Mr.  Mann's  statement  referred  specifically  to  a  12-hour 
rolling  mill  in  1919.  Senate  Document  no.  Vol.  III.,  page 
361,  gives  two  tables  for  two  typical  12-hour  rolling  mills 
of  the  hand  type  which  then  prevailed,  showing  in  detail 
the  amount  of  time  each  class  of  workers  actually  worked 
in  igio.  Bottom  Makers  in  the  first  mill  actually  worked 
3  hours  and  17  minutes  or  28%  of  their  12  hours  on  duty. 
Such  workers  therefore,  had  72%  of  their  time  largely  to 
themselves.  Chargers  worked  about  5  hours  and  had 
about  7  hours  largely  to  themselves.  Roughers  and 
Pitcranemen  worked  about  7  hours  and  had  about  5  hours  of 
leisure.  The  various  roll-hands  however, — which  class  of 
workers  Mr.  Mann  stated  worked  just  6  hours  a  day  in 
alternating  reliefs  in  191 9 — averaged  about  10  hours,  and 
in  one  case  1 1  hours  work  out  of  the  12  in  191  o.  Moreover, 
Senate  Dociunent  no  refers  to  these  hand  rolling  depart- 
ments— obviously  meaning  these  roll-hand  occupations — as 
being  most  subject  of  all  in  the  steel  industry  to  the  criticism 
of  speeding-up.  Justafterthishowever,onpage363,itstates: — 

"  Within  the  last  few  years  small  mechanical  rolling  mills  of  the  con- 


Ii6     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

tinuous  type  have  been  installed  in  a  number  of  plants  throughout  the 
country  ...  in  these  mills  the  severe  manual  labor  is  almost  entirely 
eliminated,  the  work  consisting  almost  entirely  of  handling  levers  .  .  . 
it  is  certain  that  within  the  next  few  years  small  rolling  mills  of  the 
continuous  type  will  supplant  a  great  many  of  the  hand  mills.  ..." 

This  is  precisely  what  has  happened.  These  "small 
mechanical  rolling  mills"  have  been  both  enlarged  to  per- 
form the  heaviest  rolling  and  developed  to  perform  the 
widest  variety  of  rolling,  till  today  they  are  in  almost  uni- 
versal use.  Take  the  rolled  output  of  the  U.  S.  Steel 
Corporation  for  1920  as  an  example  (see  19th  Annual  Re- 
port, page  15) ;  all  steel  rails,  blooms,  plates,  heavy  shapes, 
tubing  and  pipe,  and  car  wheels,  as  is  well  known,  and  70%^ 
of  merchant  shapes  and  50%^  of  wire  rods — constituting 
8,937.934  tons  out  of  11,529,955  tons,  or  77.5%  of  rolled 
products,  are  rolled  in  "mechanical  mills  "  in  which  "severe 
manual  labor  is  almost  entirely  eliminated,  the  work  consist- 
ing almost  entirely  of  the  handling  of  levers." 

Of  the  remaining  22.5%  of  rolled  products  two  thirds 
consist  of  sheet  and  tin  plate  which  cannot  be  rolled  by  the 
mechanical  mill.  But  the  whole  department  producing  such 
products  has  for  years,  as  has  already  been  emphasized, 
worked  on  a  three  shift  8  hotir  schedtile  of  42.8  hours  a  week. 

There  remain  certain  mills  making  rod  and  miscellaneous 
merchant  shapes,  to  a  total  of  8.5%  of  rolled  production, 
which  are  still  of  the  old  fashioned  "hand-rolling"  variety. 
In  these  the  other  occupations  actually  work,  as  shown  by 
Senate  Document  1 10  tables  already  referred  to,  only  about 
half  of  their  12  hours  on  duty,  and  for  the  more  continuous 
roll-hand  occupations  all  such  mills  now  employ  2  men  for 
each  occupation  who  "spell "  each  other  every  hour  or  half 
hour  as  described  by  Mr.  Mann. 

This,  then,  is  what  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
means  specifically  when  it  refers  to  the  rolling  mills — which 
together  constitute  the  greater  part  of  the  industry — as 
among  the  departments  where,  even  in  191 8  at  the  height 

'Percentages  furnished  by  U.  S.  Steel  Coiporation. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       117 

of  war  activity,  the  work  was  "necessarily  of  a  rather 
leisurely  character."  Moreover  the  facts  are  equally  plain 
and  specific  as  to  what  the  U.S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
means  when  it  refers  to  the  work  in  the  furnace  departments 
which  make  up  the  balance  of  the  industry  (the  term  "in- 
dustry" being  used  as  the  Interchurch  Report  consistently 
uses  it,  to  mean  the  primary  production  departments)  as  of 
a  "leisurely  character." 

Mr.  Clayton  L.  Patterson,  in  discussing  the  intermittent 
nature  of  12-hour  work  in  furnace  departments  says,  on 
page  65  of  his  pamphlet,  "Review  of  the  Steel  Strike," — 

"Time  studies  made  in  the  Corporation  (U.  S.  Steel)  plants  indicated 
that  all  employees  were  actually  working  an  average  of  30  to  40%  of 
their  time  in  the  blast  furnace  departments  and  an  average  of  40  to  55% 
in  the  open-hearth  departments." 

In  its  four  pages  of  quotations  from  steel  workers'  diaries, 
through  which  the  Interchurch  Report  seeks  to  build  up  its 
specific  detailed  picture  of  the  awful  conditions  under  which 
the  steel  worker  "labors  to  daily  exhaustion"  and  "to  old 
age  at  forty,"  it  makes  its  definite  references  chiefly  to 
the  open-hearth  departments. 

On  page  316,  Volume  III  of  Senate  Doctmient  no,  as 
part  of  a  detailed  description  of  the  work  performed  by  all 
different  open  hearth  workers,  appears  a  detailed  table  as  to 
the  amount  of  time  each  different  kind  of  worker  has  to 
work  under  a  temperature  above  normal.  It  is  particularly 
stated  that  this  study  was  made  during  summer  when  heat 
was  naturally  most  oppressive  and  the  outside  temperature 
is  specifically  stated  at  84  degrees. 

One  man^  in  such  a  department  has  to  work  under  a 
temperature  of  98  degrees  for  8  hours  and  45  minutes  out 
of  the  12  hours.  Two  men  have  to  work  under  a  temper- 
ature of  126  degrees  for  7  minutes  at  a  time,  ten  times  at 
regular  intervals,  for  a  total  of  one  hour  and  ten  minutes 

'  This  man  is  the  foreman,  no  other  man  in  the  department  has  to 
work  as  much  as  8  hovu-s  out  of  the  1 2-hour  day. 


Ii8       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

out  of  the  12  hours.  Three  men  have  to  work  at  a  temper- 
ature of  126  degrees  for  a  period  of  about  7  minutes  three 
times  at  intervals  or  for  a  maximum  total  of  30  minutes  out 
of  the  12  hours.  One  man  has  to  work  at  a  temperature 
of  1 12  degrees  20  minutes  at  a  time  10  different  times  or  for 
a  total  of  3  hours  and  20  minutes  out  of  the  12  hours.  Two 
men  have  to  work  at  a  temperature  of  1 12  degrees  20  min- 
utes at  a  time  6  different  times  or  for  a  total  of  2  hours  out 
of  the  12  hours.  Three  men  have  to  work  at  a  temperature 
of  108  degrees  for  15  minutes  at  a  time  8  different  times  for 
a  total  of  2  hours  out  of  the  12  hours. 

Page  355  of  Volume  III  Senate  Document  1 10  shows  that 
for  all  these  different  groups  of  12-hour  workers  in  an  open 
hearth  department,  the  average  time  actually  spent  at 
work  is  40.2%  while  the  time  actually  spent  at  rest — ^most 
of  which  the  workers  have  to  themselves,  to  sleep  if  it  is  the 
night  shift,  or  as  the  Senate  Investigation  described,  to  go 
out  to  the  fountain  and  eat  or  smoke  or  talk — is  59.8%  as 
follows  (last  column  and  imweighted  averages  computed) : 


DIVISION   OF  WORKING    DAY    INTO   ACTIVE    TIME   AND 

IDLE  TIME  IN  THE  OPEN  HEARTH  DEPARTMENT 

OF  A  LARGE  STEEL  PLANT 


Occupations 


Charging    Machine 

Operators 

First  Helpers 

Second  Helpers 

Third  Helpers 

Ladle  Cranemen 

Steel  Pourers 

Brake-Men  Engineers . 
Stripper  Cranemen.  .  . 


Average . 


Hours  Per  Day 


Total 


12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 


Active 


H.   M. 


06 
16 

31 
26 
12 
36 

58 
25 


4    49 


Idle 
or  Obser- 
vation 


H.   M. 


54 
44 
29 

34 
48 
24 
02 
35 


Per  Cent, 
of  Time 
Active 


43 
27 
46 
37 
52 
30 
50 
37 

40.2 


Per  Cent, 
of  Time 
Idle&f 
Observ. 


57 
73 
54 
63 
48 
70 
50 
63 

59.8 


CHAPTER  XI 

STEEL  WORKING  HOURS  COMPARED  WITH  HOURS  IN 
OTHER   INDUSTRIES 

The  problem,  as  such,  of  determining  what  the  working 
hours  in  the  steel  industry  actually  are,  or  what  working 
hours  in  industry  as  a  whole  actually  are,  is  of  no  concern  in 
the  present  analysis  whose  interest  is  merely  in  determining 
the  accuracy  of  the  Interchurch  Report.  But  the  Inter- 
church  Report  particularly  emphasizes  that  steel  working 
hours  are  "relics  of  barbarism  .  .  .  which  must  be  compared 
with  hours  in  other  industries  of  the  country"  (page  55) — 
that  the  steel  worker  is  "being  un- Americanized  by  the  12 
hour  day"  in  "scores  of  thousands"  (page  84)  and  other- 
wise insists  that  steel  working  hours  are  so  different  and  so 
much  more  harmful  to  the  worker  than  working  hours 
throughout  the  country  that : 

"  The  church  and  every  other  American  institution  has  a  duty  to  per- 
form" which  "duty  cannot  be  fulfilled  till  the  12  hour  day  is  abolished" 
(page  84). 

Moreover  it  here  and  elsewhere  calls  upon  the  church,  the 
public,  and  the  government  to  force  a  change  in  steel  work- 
ing hours  which  shall  bring  them  down  to  what  it  alleges  are 
average  American  working  hours. 

It  is  necessary,  therefore,  in  judging  the  validity  of  this 
very  important  Interchurch  Report  charge  and  demand  to 
determine  as  accurately  as  possible  under  the  circimistances 
what  steel  working  hours  actually  are  and  how  they  compare 
with  the  actual  working  hours  of  average  American  workers. 

There  are  four  principal  sources  of  information  in  regard 
to  working  hours  in  the  steel  industry. 

First,  Senate  Document  no — a  4  volume  report  of  a 

119 


120        ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

most  exhaustive  study  of  the  steel  industry  made  by  the 
government's  own  experts  which  gives  detailed  figures  as  to 
wages  and  hours  of  work  for  each  production  occupation  in 
14  steel  departments  by  sections  of  the  country  and  for  the 
entire  industry.  This  report  also  goes  in  the  greatest  detail 
into  conditions  of  labor  and  accident  hazard,  into  methods 
of  operation,  into  the  nature  of  each  different  type  of  job, 
into  the  reason  for  the  variation  of  hours,  etc.  These  figures 
are  for  1910. 

Second,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Bulletin  218 
published  October,  191 7.  This  is  a  500  page  study  as  to 
wages,  hours  and  incidentally  working  conditions,  chiefly 
for  10  principal  representative  departments  of  the  industry, 
giving  this  information  by  sections  of  the  country  and  for 
the  industry  as  a  whole,  partly  for  the  9  year  period  and 
partly  for  the  5  year  period  up  to  and  including  May,  191 5. 
This  study  is  particularly  interesting  for  its  own  discussion 
and  siimmaries  based  on  conditions  of  May,  191 5. 

Third,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Review 
October,  191 9  giving  first  detailed  figures  as  to  full  time 
hours  per  week  and  earnings  per  hour  for  the  81  occupa- 
tions in  6  representative  steel  departments  for  each  section 
of  the  country  and  for  the  industry  as  a  whole,  and  second, 
recapittilating  this  same  information  in  percentages  based 
on  1913  as  norm.  It  gives  these  figures  for  1913, 1914, 1915, 
191 7  and  "191 9" — the  so-called  "191 9"  figures  represent- 
ing pay  roll  periods  running  from  June,  191 8  to  May,  191 9 
but  about  two  thirds  of  which  were  for  the  months  Decem- 
ber, 1918  and  January,  1919.  Except  for  a  brief  foreword 
this  study  does  not  itself  discuss  these  figures  or  give  totals 
or  averages  except  occupation  by  occupation  for  the  country. 

Fourth,  the  official  figures  for  the  U.S.  Steel  Corporation  pre- 
sented before  the  Senate  Hearings  in  September,  191 9,  giving 
the  ntmiber  of  employees  and  the  percentage  of  employees 
working  different  groups  of  hours  for  all  employees  of  the  U. 
S.  Steel  Corporation,  the  biggest  unit  in  the  steel  industry. 

Of  the  six  representative  steel  making  departments  for 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       121 

which  figures  are  given  by  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  statistics 
October,  1919,  study  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  Besse- 
mer department  is  one  of  what  was  referred  to  in  Chapter 
IX  as  the  middle  group — in  which  working  hours  averaged 
about  65  a  week  but  which  included  a  certain  proportion 
of  48  hour  and  72  hour  workers.  It  will  also  be  remembered 
that  this  is  the  one  department  given  in  which  increases  and 
decreases  in  working  hours  about  balanced — between  either 
1913  or  1914  and  "  1919, "  the  peak  of  steel  war  activity. 

By  merely  setting  down  each  official  government  figure 
as  to  hours  per  occupation,  without  any  averaging,  weight- 
ing or  other  change  but  just  as  they  are  given  in  the  first 
and  third  government  documents  above  referred  to,  it  is 
possible  to  get  such  a  table  as  the  following : 

BESSEMER  CONVERTERS 


Stockers 

Cupola  Chargers 

Cupola  Melters 

Cupola  Tappers 

Blowing  Engineers 

Blowers 

Regulators  ist 

"  2nd 

Vessel  Scrapers 

Vesselmen 

Vesselmen  Helpers 

Cinder  Pitmen 

Bottom  Makers 

Bottom  Makers'  Helpers 

Ladle  Liners 

Ladle  Liners'  Helpers . . . 

Stopper  Makers 

Stopper  Setters 

Steel  Pourers 

Mold  Cappers 

Ingot  Strippers 

Laborers 

Other  Occupations 

Average 


1910 


65-3 
74.8 
64-5 
639 
74.6 
69.7 
67.2 

71.4 
59-4 
58.3 
72.6 
70.6 
69.2 
68.3 


55-6 
56.6 

66.3 
74-3 


69-5 


1911 


1912 


1913 


58.1 

62.7 
54-3 

633 
66.4 
68.3 

57.8 
56.4 
67.8 

73-8 
73-1 
68.7 
70.9 
70.6 
51-6 
55-7 
56.9 
69.9 
75-2 


1914 


55-5 

59-5 
56.9 

64 

63.8 

66.5 

55-6 

54-3 
71.9 

73 

72.4 

68.6 

69.1 

70.2 

50.7 

52.5 

60.8 

66 

74 


1915 


55-6 

59-3 
55-8 

64 

64.7 

66.6 

56 

55-5 
72 

73 

72.6 

68.8 

69-5 
69.7 

51-5 
53-5 
60.9 
66.2 
74-3 


1917 


55-3 

61.7 
54 

64 

66.8 

67.4 

61.9 
56.5 

72 
72 
71.2 

713 
67.8 
49.6 
52.7 

54-6 
68.7 

73-4 


1919' 


64 

59-4 
58.9 

63.1 

68.2 
64.4 

60.3 
61. 1 

71 
64.8 

70.3 

69.7 

71.6 

70 

59-8 

58.5 
61. 1 
64.2 
71. 1 


122     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

It  will  be  noted  at  once  that  there  are  no  hours  given  for 
the  last  group  of  workers  listed  as  "other  occupations"  at 
the  bottom  of  the  1910  column.  Reference  to  the  original 
source  of  these  figures  (Senate  Document  no  pages  xliii  and 
74)  show  that  these  "other  occupations"  consist  of  elec- 
tricians and  engineers  who  maintain  power,  bricklayers  who 
reline  furnaces,  tool  makers,  repair  men,  etc.,  who  con- 
stitute 25.3  per  cent  of  the  workers  of  the  department. 
The  working  hours  of  these  classifications,  because  of  the 
special  technical  reason  that  many  of  such  classes  of  workers 
in  other  industries  belong  to  labor  unions,  are  analyzed 
separately  by  Senate  Document  no  and  not  included  in 
the  average  of  working  hours  for  the  department.  These 
same  or  similar  classes  of  occupations  in  all  other  depart- 
ments are  also  treated  separately  in  Senate  Document  no. 
Therefore  the  exact  extent  to  which  they  influence  average 
working  hours  in  each  department  is  not  indicated. 

Again  it  will  be  noted  that  there  is  a  stated  average — 
69.5  hours — at  the  bottom  of  the  1910  column.  This  is 
the  government  statistician's  own  weighted  average  of  the 
working  hours  of  the  department.  Similarly  weighted 
averages  are  given  by  Senate  Document  no  as  to  average 
working  hours  in  each  of  the  14  departments  given  and  for 
all  these  departments. 

These  19 10  figures  given  by  Senate  Document  no  are 
homogeneous — the  result  of  a  single  investigation.  They 
are  for  14  different  departments,  much  more  representative 
of  the  industry  than  6  departments  can  be.  These  1910 
figures  therefore,  can  be  fairly  weighted  and  averaged  and 
an  approximately  accurate  figure  computed  from  them  as  to 
average  working  hours  throughout  at  least  that  part  of  the 
whole  steel  industry  which  they  represent. 

The  191 3  to  "191 9"  figures  on  the  other  hand,  are  a 
composite  of  three  different  investigations,  not  only  made  at 
different  times  but  involving  different  proportions  of  de- 
partments, different  plants,  and  different  numbers  of 
workers.     The  figures  for  1913,  1914,  and  1915  are  borrowed 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       123 

from  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin  218,  a  study  based  on 
10  different  departments.  The  1917  and  "1919"  figures 
are  based  on  two  other  studies  each  involving  but  6  depart- 
ments. Take  the  Blast  Furnace  figures  for  instance.  Those 
for  1 91 3  are  based  on  pay  rolls  from  33  plants;  those  for 
1914-1915  from  35  plants;  for  1917  from  14  plants;  and  for 
"19 19"  from  20  plants.  Yet  while  the  35  plants  in  1915 
employed  only  878  Blast  Furnace  Stockers,  the  20  plants 
in  "  191 9  "  employed  988  stockers.  Again  while  the  8  Besse- 
mer plants  in  191 7  employed  30  Regulators,  9  Bessemer 
plants  in  "191 9"  employed  23  Regulators.  This  same 
discrepancy  in  the  average  number  of  workers  per  occupa- 
tion— due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  the  figures  represent 
different  plants,  appears  throughout.  Again  figures  are 
given  for  three  times  as  many  Blast  Furnaces  as  for  Sheet 
Mills  whereas  at  least  the  Steel  Corporation,  for  which 
definite  figures  are  available,  have  more  Sheet  Mills  than 
Blast  Furnaces.  *  The  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  give  specific- 
ally the  average  hours  worked  each  different  year  by  each 
of  81  representative  occupations — that  is  they  say  definitely 
that  Bessemer  Blowers  throughout  the  country  worked 
64.1  hours  in  1914  and  63.1  hours  in  "1919,"  that  Sheet 
Mill  Shearmen  worked  42.9  hours  in  191 4  and  43.5  hours  in 
"1919, "  etc.,  etc.  But  because  of  the  facts  above  em- 
phasized, to  weight  figures  so  limited  and  so  non-homo- 
geneous to  attempt  to  arrive  at  an  actual  working  week 
for  the  theoretical  average  individual  worker  for  the 
whole  industry  would  be  so  subject  to  error  that  it  cannot 
fairly  be  done  and  the  government  statisticians  themselves 
have  refused  to  do  it.  There  are  therefore  no  government 
figures  as  to  working  hours  in  terms  of  the  average  in- 
dividual worker  since  1910,  and  no  figures  from  which  such 
an  average  can  be  fairly  computed. 

Moreover  these  various  government  figures  are  based  on 
6  departments,  10  departments  and  14  departments.    But 

*  Average  number  employees  per  Blast  Furnace  (1919)  314;  per  Sheet 
Mill  397. 


124    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  14  departments  do  not  include  either  Sheet  Mill  or  Tin 
Plate  Mill  which  are  included  in  the  studies  based  on  the 
lesser  number  of  departments.  Thus  even  the  most  ex- 
tensive government  report  makes  no  pretence  of  being  more 
than  a  study  of  a  limited  number  of  representative  iron  and 
steel  making  departments.  How  limited  these  studies  are 
is  at  once  evident  from  reference  to  any  Annual  Report  of 
the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation.  The  1919  Report,  page  46  for 
instance,  shows  that  in  this  single  unit  in  the  steel  industry, 
over  40  various  iron  and  steel  making  departments  are 
listed. 

Again  while  in  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  October,  1919, 
study  Blast  Furnaces  are  listed  as  i  of  6  departments  and 
their  extremely  long  hours  influence  any  averages  accord- 
ingly, in  the  case  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  not  only  do 
Blast  Furnaces  represent  merely  i  out  of  40  odd  different 
types  of  departments  but  in  the  total  of  departments  of  all 
kinds  there  are  only  a  total  of  124  Blast  Furnaces  out  of  a 
total  of  over  1400  iron  and  steel  making  departments. 
Again  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  October,  1919,  study  lists 
the  long  hour  Blast  Furnace  and  the  short  hour  Sheet  Mill 
departments  equally  as  one  each  of  6  representative  depart- 
ments. Moreover  it  gives  figures  for  three  times  as  many 
Blast  Furnaces  as  Sheet  Mills.  But  the  Corporation 
records  show  that  its  124  12-hour  Blast  Furnace  depart- 
ments, are  much  more  than  offset  by  its  155  "Sheet  Jobbing 
and  Plate  Mill  departments"  and  222  "Hot  Mills  Black 
Plate  for  Tinning"  in  which  departments  the  7  and  8  hour 
day  prevails. 

Finally  the  last  U.  S.  Industrial  Census  (1914)  shows 
(Abstract  page  96),  1,061,058  iron  and  steel  workers  in  the 
country  of  which  29,356  Blast  Furnace  workers  represent 
only  about  3%.  At  the  time  of  the  steel  strike  the  term 
iron  and  steel  industry  was  generally  used  to  mean  that  half 
of  the  industry  which  both  produces  and  manufactures 
steel  and  which  employes  about  500,000  workers.  Even  if 
Blast  Furnace  workers  increased  50%  during  the  war  they 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       125 

still  represented  less  than  10%  of  the  industry  so  inter- 
preted. 

In  other  words  it  is  plain  that  in  an  industry  in  which  the 
smaller  units  have  at  least  a  dozen  different  departments, 
the  largest  unit  over  40  departments  and  the  industry  as  a 
whole  at  least  50  or  60  departments  (see  footnote);  in 
which  working  hours  vary  from  42  to  72  per  6-day  week, 
no  approximation  of  average  working  hours  for  the  industry 
as  a  whole  is  possible  without  an  interpretation  of  what  is 
included  in  the  industry. 

Because  of  this  and  because  the  Interchurch  Report 
continually  confuses  12-hour  workers  with  12-hour  depart- 
ments, a  clear  understanding  of  the  relation  between  the 
different  iron  and  steel  making  departments  and  the  rela- 
tion between  the  working  hours  of  the  various  departments 
and  the  working  hours  of  many  groups  of  employees  in  these 
departments,  which  are  frequently  very  different,  is  corre- 
spondingly necessary. 

Iron  and  steel  making  departments  may  be  roughly 
divided  into  two  groups — the  primary  departments  which 
through  a  series  of  carefully  synchronized  operations  smelt 
the  ore  and  process  it  in  a  continuously  hot  state  into  various 
semi-finished  iron  and  steel  products, — and  the  finishing 
departments  which  take  up  these  semi-finished  products 
cold  and  convert  them  into  their  finished  forms. 

Blast  Furnace 

The  basic  key  department  in  all  primary  iron  and  steel 
making  is  the  Blast  Furnace  which  converts  iron  ore  by  use 
of  coke  and  limestone  into  pig  iron.  To  shut  down  and 
relight  a  Blast  Furnace  costs  up  to  $50,000  and  takes  two 
weeks'  time.  This  department  must  operate  therefore  day 
and  night  7  days  a  week.     As  has  already  been  shown 

'  In  the  oflScial  list  of  its  40  principal  kinds  of  departments  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration does  not  show  Puddling  Mills,  Garret  Rod  Mills,  or  CrucibleFur- 
nace  departments,  all  listed  among  the  14  representative  departments, 
used  by  Senate  Document  1 10.  There  are  numerous  other  such  iron  and 
steel  making  departments  not  represented  in  the  Corporation  activities. 


126     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

however,  since  191 1  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  and  the 
larger  units  in  the  industry  have  employed  a  swing  crew  in 
Blast  Furnace  operation  so  that  the  men  themselves  only 
work  6  days  a  week.  The  government  figures  however 
indicate  that  at  least  up  to  191 9  this  has  applied  only  to 
about  half  the  Blast  Furnaces  in  the  industry  as  a  whole. 
Twenty-four  hour  operation  means  of  course  that  the 
workers  must  work  on  a  2-shift  12-hour  schedule  or  on  a  3- 
shift  8-hour  schedule.  The  stocking  of  a  blast  furnace  is  a 
regular  and  continuous  hour  by  hour  operation.  However 
since  the  work  is  chiefly  performed  by  automatic  machinery 
the  operator  does  not  actually  work  much  more  than  50 
to  60%  of  the  time.  The  iron  is  drawn  off  every  6  hours  or 
2  times  each  12-hour  turn.  In  19 10  before  much  of  the 
modem  automatic  machinery  was  installed,  all  Blast  Fur- 
nace workers  only  actually  worked,  according  to  Senate 
Document  no,  Volume  III,  page  361,  about  70%  of  their 
hours  on  duty.  With  modern  machinery  they  actually  work 
less  than  50%  of  their  time  on  duty  or  less  than  6  hours  out 
of  the  12,  for  which  of  course  they  receive  12  hours'  pay.  If 
Blast  Furnace  work  was  put  on  a  3-shift  8-hour  schedule  the 
average  worker  would  actually  work  less  than  4  hours  a 
day,  and  because  pourings  are  generally  every  6  hours,  the 
work  could  not  as  at  present  be  evenly  divided  among  the 
shifts.  ^ 

The  molten  iron  goes  from  the  Blast  Furnace  into  Mixers 
which  are  in  reality  merely  great  reservoirs  in  which  the 
molten  metal  is  temporarily  stored  to  be  drawn  off  as  re- 
quired for  use  in  the  Open  Hearth  and  Bessemer  Furnaces 
which  convert  it  into  steel. 

Open  Hearth 

The  Open  Hearth  is  today  the  principal  and  by  far  the 
most  rapidly  expanding  department  in  steel  making.    The 

'  This  is  general  practice.  It  is  practicable,  however,  and  some  fur- 
naces are  tapped  6  times  per  day.  In  such  cases  the  work  could  be 
evenly  divided  between  3  shifts. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        127 

capacity  of  the  average  Open  Hearth  furnace  runs  from  a 
normal  of  12  to  14  to  a  maximum  of  18  "heats"  a  week. 
That  is,  such  furnaces  are  charged  with  a  combination  of 
molten  iron  and  scrap  steel  and  this  product  converted  into 
Open  Hearth  steel  under  normal  conditions  about  every  12 
hours.  Except  for  cleaning  up  and  minor  jobs  the  work  of 
the  department  is  done  in  preparing  and  charging  the 
furnaces  at  the  beginning  of  the  "heat"  and  in  pouring  the 
steel  at  the  end  of  the  "heat,"  the  men  in  the  meanwhile 
having  their  time  largely  to  themselves.  Senate  Document 
1 10,  Volume  in,  page  355,  shows  in  detail  as  already  quoted 
that  the  average  Open  Hearth  worker  in  19 10  actually 
worked  only  40.2%  of  his  time  or  4  hours  and  49  minutes 
out  of  his  12  hours  on  duty  and  had  59.8%  of  his  time  or  7 
hours  1 1  minutes  out  of  his  12-hour  turn  to  himself.  If  this 
work  were  put  on  the  3-shift  8-hour  basis,  it  would  obviously 
mean  that  instead  of  preparing  a  furnace  at  the  beginning 
of  a  turn  and  pouring  the  steel  at  the  end  of  the  turn — thus 
being  responsible  for  one  complete  operation — part  of  the 
crews  would  have  to  pour  a  "heat"  for  which  the  previous 
crew  had  been  responsible,  and  prepare  and  change  a  ' '  heat " 
for  which  a  succeeding  crew  would  have  to  be  responsible, 
while  each  third  crew  would  have  a  turn  between  charging 
and  pouring  during  which  it  would  have  practically  nothing 
to  do.  ^ 

The  fact  that  the  Blast  Furnace  must  operate  7  days  a 
week  and  that  the  Open  Hearth  uses  the  iron  molten,  years 
ago  led  to  the  practise  of  7-day  operation  in  the  Open 
Hearth  department  also.  If  this  department  operates  only 
6  days  and  the  Sunday  production  of  Blast  Furnace  iron  is 
allowed  to  cool,  it  must  be  remelted  at  the  cost  of  about  a 
dollar  a  ton.  For  this  reason  some  of  the  smaller  plants, 
which  find  it  necessary  to  take  advantage  of  every  oppor- 
tunity to  meet  the  competition  of  their  larger  and  better 

» This  again  refers  to  normal  practice  and  operation.  In  times  of 
great  steel  demand  when  furnaces  are  pushed  to  i8  heats  a  week,  or  3  a 
day,  the  work  could  be  equally  divided  among  3  shifts. 


128     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

equipped  rivals,  continued  to  run  their  Open  Hearth  de- 
partments 7  days  a  week.  The  "1919"  government  figures, 
however,  show  average  Open  Hearth  hours  of  72.6  weighted 
or  71.9  unweighted  per  week  for  the  whole  country. 

Bessemer 

The  second  and  older  method  of  steel  m.aking  is  the 
Bessemer  process  which  requires  only  from  20  to  30  minutes 
to  convert  pig  iron  into  steel.  Although  for  many  of  the 
occupations  in  this  department  the  nature  of  the  work  is  as 
inherently  leisurely  and  intermittent  as  in  Blast  Furnace  or 
Open  Hearth  work,  the  mere  rapid  nature  of  the  process 
makes  the  work  in  many  of  the  occupations  in  this  depart- 
ment entirely  different.  This  difference  in  the  nature  of  the 
work  is  plainly  indicated  in  the  table  of  Bessemer  hours 
already  given.  The  work  of  the  Stopper  Maker  for  in- 
stance is  leisurely  and  intermittent  and  is  therefore  on  a  2- 
shift  basis.  The  work  of  the  Stopper  Setter  however  while 
only  for  a  few  minutes  at  a  time  with  10  or  15  minute  rest 
periods  is  in  close  proximity  to  be  the  molten  metal  and 
hours  for  this  occupation  throughout  the  country  except  at 
the  peak  of  war  activity  when  they  were  59  a  week  averaged 
51,  50  and  49  which  means  that  in  all  but  a  few  plants  they 
are  on  a  3-shift  8-hour  basis.  Other  occupations  in  this 
department  are  similarly  on  a  2 -shift  or  3-shift  basis  largely 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  work.  The  government 
figures  also  plainly  show  that  this  whole  department 
throughout  the  country  works  6  days  a  week  and  in  a  large 
part  of  the  plants  but  5  and  a  half  days  a  week. 

The  molten  steel  from  both  the  Open  Hearth  and  Besse- 
mer departments  is  poured  into  ingot  molds  and  these  ingots, 
of  from  I  to  5  tons  each,  are  carried  to  the  "soking"  pits 
where  they  remain  under  a  high  even  temperature  for  from 
2  to  5  hours  before  they  are  passed  on  to  the  Bloom  Mills — 
the  first  of  the  Rolling  Departments. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       129 

Rolling  Mill 

Of  the  Rolling  Mills  which  take  the  steel  while  hot  from 
the  furnace  departments — the  Bloom  Mill  rolls  the  raw 
ingots  turning  out  the  product  in  billets  or  slabs  or  sheet 
bars  of  various  sizes  according  to  further  use.  The  average 
working  hours  for  all  occupations  in  the  Bloom  Mills  were 
66.5  a  week  weighted  and  64.6  unweighted  in  "1919"  at 
the  height  of  steel  war  activity.  This  means  that  the  de- 
partment as  a  whole  averages  5  and  a  half  days  a  week  on  a 
2-shift  basis. 

From  the  Bloom  Mill,  the  product  in  these  various  forms 
passes  -still  hot  into  other  rolling  departments  such  as  Rod 
Mill,  Bar  Mill,  Structural  Mill  or  Plate  Mill  which  make 
various  semi-finished  products  which  are  allowed  to  cool  and 
finished  or  fabricated  in  other  departments. 

In  the  Sheet  Mill  where  the  product  is  rolled  cold  and  thin 
and  flexible  it  requires  a  considerable  amount  of  physical 
handling.  Therefore  as  has  already  been  shown  on  page  76 
by  detailed  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  statistics.  Sheet  Mill 
work  throughout  the  country  has  for  years  been  on  a  3- 
shift  8-hour  basis  5  and  one  third  days  a  week  or  42.8  hours 
a  week. 

In  the  Bar  Mills  also  a  certain  amount  of  physical  han- 
dling of  the  product  is  necessary.  Detailed  statistics  from 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  statistics  have  already  been  quoted 
on  page  72  showing  that  48%  of  the  workers  in  this  depart- 
ment work  less  than  60  hours  a  week  and  89%  less  than 
72  hours  a  week. 

As  regards  the  bulk  of  the  Rolling  Departments  however, 
it  will  be  remembered  that  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
Monthly  Review,  June,  1920,  includes  these  among  the 
departments  whose  work  is  referred  to  as  "necessarily  of  a 
leisurely  character."  Senate  Document  no,  Volume  III, 
page  361,  shows  the  exact  amount  of  time  worked  and  the 
amount  of  time  spent  in  resting  in  the  14  different  occupa- 
tions of  two  typical  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  Rolling  Mills  in 
0 


130     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

19 10.  These  2  mills  worked  5  and  and  three  fourths  days 
and  5  nights  on  a  2-shift  basis.  Bottom  makers  in  the  first 
mill  worked  3  hours  and  17  minutes  and  had  nearly  9  hours 
to  themselves  out  of  their  12-hour  turn.  Chargers  worked 
5  hours  and  had  7  hours  out  of  the  12  to  themselves. 
Roughers  and  Pitcranemen  worked  7  hours  and  had  5 
hours  to  themselves.  The  great  bulk  of  Rollers  however 
at  this  time  worked  10  and  a  fraction  hours  out  of  the  12- 
hour  turn.  In  plant  number  2,  hours  actually  worked  and 
hours  idle  per  occupation  varied  from  plant  number  i  but 
the  average  for  both  plants  was  practically  the  same — 74% 
of  time  working  and  26%  of  time  resting.  Since  1910,  how- 
ever, the  "mechanical  rolling  mills"  described  by  Senate 
Document  1 10  as  then  coming  into  use  and  thru  whose  use 
it  states  "severe  manual  labor  is  almost  entirely  eliminated" 
have  been  generally  adopted  and  in  processes  where  they 
cannot  be  used  either  the  entire  department  has  been  put  on 
an  8-hour  schedule  or  extra  roll-hands  are  employed  so  that 
this  harder  or  more  continuous  work  is  now  done  by  two 
men  relieving  each  other  every  hour  or  half  hour.  Thus  the 
average  worker  thruout  the  12-hour  rolling  departments  now 
actually  works  about  half  his  time  on  duty.     (See  page  1 16.) 

All  these  departments  are  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
steel.  In  the  manufacture  of  cast  iron,  the  product  goes  in 
pigs  directly  from  the  Blast  Furnace  to  the  Foundries  which 
are  finishing  departments  for  the  manufacture  of  iron  cast- 
ings. In  the  manufacture  of  wrought  iron,  it  goes  to  the 
Puddling  Mills  in  which  the  hours  in  1910  averaged  55  a 
week  or  9  a  day  (Senate  Document  no,  page  xliii)  and  for 
191 5  are  summarized  in  detail  on  page  77  of  the  present 
Analysis. 

It  is  plain  then  that  the  question  of  working  schedules 
in  these  great  primary  iron  and  steel  producing  depart- 
ments involves  3  problems  which  are  more  or  less  unique  to 
the  steel  industry. 

First,  the  necessity  of  continuous  operation  leaves  no 
alternative  except  a  2-shift  or  a  3-shift  system.    In  other 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       131 

words,  it  has  never  been  possible  for  the  steel  industry  to 
arbitrarily  set  or  gradually  reduce  its  general  working  hours 
as  has  been  possible  in  other  industries. 

Second,  in  many  of  the  occupations  in  the  primary  produc- 
tion departments  the  fact  that  the  only  human  labor  in- 
volved comes  only  at  long  intervals  when  furnaces  are 
charged  or  poured  or  rolls  changed,  etc.,  means  that  the 
work  is  so  highly  intermittent  that  if  hours  on  duty  were 
reduced  to  8,  the  only  alternative  of  12,  the  men  in  these 
occupations  would  only  average  from  2  to  5  hours  actual 
work  a  day. 

Third,  the  fact  that  periods  of  work  cannot  be  arbitrarily 
set  but  are  determined  by  the  time  it  takes  the  metal  to  heat 
and  the  fact  that  these  periods  in  the  2  principal  depart- 
ments are  normally  6  or  12  hours  apart  means  that  the 
work  could  not  under  ordinary  conditions  be  evenly  divided 
between  3  shifts  and  that  in  the  largest  department — the 
Open  Hearth — the  crews  which  happened  to  be  on  duty 
only  the  8  hours  between  charging  and  pouring  would  have 
practically  nothing  to  do. 

In  occupations  or  departments  on  the  other  hand  in  which 
the  work  is  not  inherently  intermittent  or  is  particularly 
hard  either  the  work  is  actually  on  a  3-shif  t  8-hour  basis  or 
else  such  worker  is  periodically  relieved. 

In  regard  to  this  whole  subject  of  the  variable  working 
hours  in  primary  production  departments,  U.  S.  Bureau  of 
Labor  Statistics  Bulletin  218  (page  27)  in  its  general  con- 
clusions says: —  ( 

"  It  will  be  seen  therefore,  that  there  is  no  standard  turn  for  the  iron 
and  steel  industry  as  a  whole,  and  even  if  one  were  created  arbitrarily 
to  attempt  to  conform  all  the  odd  turns  to  it  would  present  insuperable 
difficulties." 

Finishing  Departments 

The  other  great  group  of  steel  making  departments — ^the 
Finishing  Departments — which  make  tin  plate,  galvanized 
iron,  horse  shoes,  woven  fence,  nails  and  a  host  of  other  steel 


132     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

products  from  car  wheels  to  tacks,  are  in  most  cases  not 
under  the  necessity  of  continuous  operation  but  are  in 
general  straight  manufacturing  departments  whose  hours 
are  on  practically  the  same  basis  as  those  of  other  ordinary 
manufacturing  industries. 

The  proportion  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry  as  a  whole 
which  is  devoted  to  primary  production,  i.e.,  "crude  iron 
and  steel  and  rolled  products, "  and  the  proportion  devoted 
to  finishing  departments  according  to  the  last  government 
figures  (U.  S.  Abstract  of  Census  of  Manufactures,  19 14, 
page  96)  is  as  follows: 

Wage  Earners 
Average  Number 

Blast  Furnace 29,356 

Steel  Works  and  Rolling  Mills 248,716 

Total  Crude  Iron  and  Steel  and  Rolled  Products. . . .  278,072 

Other  Iron  and  Steel  Products 782,986 

Aggregate 1,061,058 

According  to  the  U.  S.  Census  interpretation  of  the  term 
iron  and  steel  industry  then,  the  primary  production  de- 
partments, in  which,  because  of  continuous  operation  and 
highly  intermittent  work,  the  12-hour  day  is  a  problem, 
constitute  just  26.2%  of  the  industry.  Thus  the  12-hour 
steel  worker  constitutes  something  less  than  40%  of  26.2% 
of  all  iron  and  steel  workers. 

But  while  wire,  steel  tubes,  nails,  horse  shoes,  nuts,  bolts, 
screws,  barrelhoops,  and  a  host  of  other  such  products  are 
commonly  made  in  finishing  departments  of  companies 
which  also  produce  the  steel  itself,  much  primary  steel 
production  is  finished  in  plants  which  ordinarily  do  not 
produce  the  iron  and  steel  which  they  consume.  Steel  plate, 
for  instance,  is  largely  bought  from  primary  production 
departments  and  finished  in  stove  plants  or  in  boiler  fac- 
tories or  steel  car  works.  But  again  this  is  not  necessarily 
the  case  and  in  many  instances  primary  producers  of  steel 
also  make  such  finished  products.     In  other  words,  it  is 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        133 

plain,  as  already  emphasized,  that  the  problem  of  establish- 
ing even  approximate  average  steel  working  hours  depends 
primarily  on  the  definition  of  what  is  to  be  included  in  the 
term  iron  and  steel  industry. 

The  24  International  unions  conducting  the  1919  steel 
strike  interpreted  the  industry  to  include  departments 
which  employed  about  500,000  men  or  about  the  same 
departments  which  are  included  in  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corpora- 
tion outside  of  its  shipyards,  by-product  and  transportation 
departments. 

The  average  working  hours  for  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation 
employees  as  given  in  the  Senate  Hearings,  page  157,  were 
in  191 9  as  follows: 

i2-hotir  workers 69,284  or  26.5  % 

lo-hour  workers 102,902  or  39.39% 

Approximately  8-hour  workers 88,994  or  34- 1  % 

These  figures  are  based  on  a  6-day  Blast  Furnace  week 
instead  of  a  63^  day  week  which  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
figures  show  to  be  the  average  for  the  whole  industry  in 
"1919. "  They  also  include  such  workers  as  electricians, 
engineers,  repair  men,  etc. ,  whose  hours  are  not  considered 
in  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  but  who  are  very 
necessary  factors  in  steel  operation  and  who  were  distinctly 
involved  in  the  steel  strike.  They  include  of  course  the 
Corporation's  finishing  departments.  They  also  include 
about  20%  of  workers  in  mining,  transportation  and  by- 
products departments  not  generally  considered  a  part  of  the 
steel  industry.  In  spite  of  this  last  fact,  however,  they  are 
very  obviously  the  most  representative  figures  for  the  indus- 
try as  a  whole  that  are  available. 

On  their  face  these  figures  show  an  average  working  day 
of  9,85  hours  or  an  average  6-day  working  week  of  59.1 
hours. 

Because  the  Interchurch  Report  has  characterized  the 
steel  workers'  hours  in  general  and  the  12-hour  day  in 
particular  as  a  "barbarism  without  valid  excuse  penalizing 


134     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  workers  of  the  country,"  as  "preventing  Americani- 
zation of  the  steel  workers"  and  otherwise  made  the 
most  bitter  arraignments  against  them,  there  remains  the 
problem  of  checking  the  steel  workers'  hours  against  such 
information  as  we  have  in  regard  to  the  working  hours  of 
Americans  as  a  whole. 

Now  while  the  idea  that  the  12  hour  day  is  more  or  less 
unique  to  the  steel  industry  has  been  strongly  impressed  on 
the  public  mind  through  constant  discussion  of  the  12  hour 
day  in  connection  with  the  steel  industry,  and  while  the  fact 
that  in  certain  conspicuous  industries  the  8  hour  day  prevails 
has  been  so  played  up  as  to  give  a  general  impression  that 
the  8  hour  day  is  more  or  less  standard  in  American  industry, 
neither  of  these  impressions  fits  the  facts. 

Five  hundred  thousand  bituminous  coal  miners,  although 
their  labor  leaders  have  been  talking  voluminously  about  a 
6  hour  day,  still  according  to  the  figures  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  (page  56)  "work  a  52.9  hours'  weekly  schedule." 

Street  railway  men,  according  to  the  Interchurch  Report 
(page  55),  work  56.4  hours  a  week — 27  minutes  a  day  less 
than  the  U.  S.  Steel  worker.  "These  are,"  the  Interchurch 
Report  emphasizes,  "  the  nearest  competitors  to  steel  hours 
in  the  list  of  principal  industries  compiled  by  the  Bureau 
of  Applied   Economics   of  Washington,  D.  C." 

Bulletin  No.  8  of  the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics, 
however,  shows  on  page  62  that — 

In  the  brick-making  industry  which  is  not  handicapped  by 
the  necessity  of  continuous  operation,  the  average  employee 
works  57.1  hours  a  week  or  just  20  minutes  a  day  less  than 
the  average  United  States  Steel  employee. 

In  the  chemical  industry,  according  to  the  same  authority 
and  on  same  page,  the  average  worker  works  56.54  hours  a 
week,  only  26  minutes  a  day  less  than  the  average  U.  S. 
Steel  worker. 

In  lumbering,  a  non-continuous  industry,  the  average 
worker,  according  to  this  same  bulletin.  No.  8,  page  59,  works 
56.1  hours  or  just  30  minutes  a  day  less  than  the  average 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       135 

U.  S.  Steel  worker,  and  the  tables  on  each  side  of  this  show 
that  furniture  makers  work  about  the  same  length  of  time 
and  mill  workers  only  a  few  minutes  a  day  less. 

Turning,  however,  from  particular  industries  to  industry  as 
a  whole  the  U.  S.  Census,  and  particularly  the  industrial 
census  of  1914,  offer  most  comprehensive  figures  as  to 
average  working  hours  or  from  which  average  working  hours 
may  be  estimated. 

The  last  U.  S.  Census  (13th  Census  Vol.  IV  p.  57)  shows 
30,091,564  male  workers  gainfully  employed  as  follows: 

"Agriculture 10,760,875 

Professions 1,151,709 

Domestic  and  Personal  Service 2,740,176 

Trade  and  Transportation 6,403,378 

Manufacturing  and  Mechanical 9,035,426" 

The  1 9 14  industrial  census  indicates  that  between  5% 
and  10%  should  be  added  to  some  of  these  groups  and  gives 
exact  figures  and  detailed  information  in  regard  to  the  last 
group. 

Every  one  knows  that  these  10,000,000  farmers — whether 
in  1910,  19 1 4  or  today  work  12  to  14  hours  a  day  6  days  in 
the  week  in  addition  to  a  good  half  day's  work  on  Sunday. 
Moreover  no  one  relieves  the  farmer  on  his  harder  jobs 
every  half  hour  and  if  he  worked  as  intermittently  as  the  12 
hour  steel  worker,  even  in  his  slack  seasons,  he  would  go 
to  the  poor  house. 

There  are  of  course  no  figures  possible  as  to  average  work- 
ing hours  for  doctors,  lawyers,  ministers,  etc.,  because  the 
very  nature  of  their  work  generally  makes  it  necessary  for 
them  to  be  available  at  all  hours.  When  Senator  Kenyon 
remarked  to  Mr.  Gompers  (Senate  Hearings,  page  429)  that 
Senators  "have  no  8  hour  day  at  all,"  Mr.  Gompers  replied, 
"  Me  too,"  and  it  is  probable  that  for  at  least  the  successful 
professional  man  in  all  lines — including  the  labor  leaders — a 
day's  work  means  much  nearer  12  hours  than  8. 

Domestics  and  Personal  Service  includes  barbers,  restau- 


136     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

rant  keepers,  cooks,  waiters,  and  other  such  workers,  in 
restaurants  and  hotels  as  well  as  in  homes,  policemen,  fire- 
men, night  watchmen,  etc.,  by  far  the  largest  proportion  of 
whom  work  12  hours. 

Trade  and  transportation  include  a  million  retailers  who 
the  public  demand  shall  keep  open  12  hours  and  on  Satur- 
days and  special  seasons  for  longer.  It  includes  perhaps 
as  many  more  retail  clerks.  It  includes  a  million  railroad 
workers  who  under  threat  of  strike  during  the  war  obtained 
from  the  government  the  "basic "  8  hour  day  that  was  given 
the  steel  workers,  but  they  work  more  than  8  hours  a  day. 
It  includes  street  car  operators  whose  working  hours  are 
9^.  It  includes  all  sorts  of  draymen,  cabmen,  pedlars,  etc., 
whose  work  probably  averages  over  12  hours  a  day.  It  in- 
cludes most  office  workers  whose  hours  probably  average  9. 

"Manufacturing  and  mechanical"  are  divided  into  two 
classes — office  workers  and  proprietors,  whose  hours  prob- 
ably average  9  for  the  former  and  more  for  the  latter,  and 
wage  earners  whose  weekly  hours  are  specifically  given 
(1914  Census  Abstract,  page  482)  as  follows: 

48  and  Under 11.8% 

48  to  54 13.4% 

54 25.8% 

54  to  60 22    % 

60 21.1% 

60  to  72 3.5% 

72 1.5% 

Over  72 8% 

Weighted  average  (taking  middle  point  of  variables) 
55.65  or  9.27  hours  a  day. 

When  steel  working  hours  are  compared  in  detail  with 
the  figures  for  this  last  group  of  "industrial  wage  earners" 
whose  hours  are  the  shortest  of  all  groups  of  American 
workers,  two  facts  are  at  once  apparent : 

First,  steel  had  a  far  greater  percentage — the  Steel  Cor- 
poration in  1919  three  times  as  many  8  hour  workers  as  this 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       137 

whole  group  (19 14)  which  is  the  only  group  in  all  American 
industry  which  emphasizes  the  8  hour  day  and  which  has 
in  general  by  far  the  greatest  percentage  of  8  hour  workers. 

Second,  steel  has  an  entirely  disproportionate  nimiber  of 
12  hour  workers. 

But  steel  faces  an  entirely  different  problem  from  most 
maniifacturing  industries  in  that  many  of  the  departments 
must  be  continuously  operated.  This  is  its  reason  for  the 
large  per  cent  of  12  hour  workers.  In  manufacturing  as  a 
whole,  on  the  other  hand,  the  necessity  of  continuous  oper- 
ation is  negligible  and  this  is  doubtless  a  chief,  if  not  the 
chief  reason,  for  its  negligible  per  cent  of  12  hour  workers. 

If  we  make  the  comparison  on  the  basis  of  the  figures  as 
they  stand — without  allowing  for  the  fact  that  steel  faces 
the  big  disadvantage  in  its  labor  problems  of  continuous 
operation  which  average  manufacturing  does  not — it 
appears  that  the  average  daily  working  hours  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation  (1919)  of  9.85  is  J5  minutes  longer, 
than  the  daily  working  hours  (9.27)  of  the  average  "indus- 
trial wage  earner"  in  1914. 

Whether  as  a  mere  matter  of  fairness,  steel  working  hours 
as  a  whole — including  the  12  hour  day — should  be  compared 
only  with  the  working  hours  of  general  manufacturing 
industries  which  do  not  have  the  same  big  problem  of 
continuous  operation,  or  whether  they  should  be  compared 
with  the  working  hours  of  other  industries  which  do  have  the 
same  or  other  special  problems,  must  perhaps  be  left  to 
individual  opinion.  But  certainly  it  is  not  fair  or  even 
reasonably  possible  to  characterize  steel  working  hours  as  a 
whole  or  the  12  hour  day  in  particular,  as  "relics  of  barbar- 
ism," "un-American"  and  " un- Americanizing "  without 
comparing  them  with  the  working  hours  of  the  great  and 
conspicuous  bulk  of  other  American  workers  in  industries 
which  have  to  face  the  same  or  other  special  conditions  as 
the  steel  industry. 

When  steel  working  hours  are  compared  with  those  of  the 
first  great  industrial  group  enumerated  by  the  census,  it  at 


138     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

once  appears  that  whereas  less  than  40%  of  some  300,000' 
steel  workers  work  the  12  hour  day,  of  10,000,000  farmers 
practically  100%  are  forced  by  the  special  nature  of  their 
occupation  to  work  more  than  12  hours  a  day  at  both  harder 
and  less  intermittent  work  than  the  steel  worker.  It  is 
plain  that  well  over  50%  of  the  2,740,176  workers  com- 
prising the  third  great  census  group  work  12  hours  or  more 
a  day,  it  is  plain  that  60%  to  80%  or  more  of  the  largest 
class  (retailers  and  assistants)  in  the  next  census  group  are 
forced  by  public  demand  to  work  12  hours  or  more  a  day. 
Taking  all  these  groups  as  enumerated  by  the  last  census 
it  is  plain  that  average  steel  hours  (including  all  depart- 
ments) were  substantially  the  same  as  average  working 
hours  for  all  Americans ;  and  it  is  particularly  plain  that 
the  8  hour  day  was  worked  by  a  greater  percentage  of 
steel  workers  than  of  all  American  workers  and  the  12  hour 
day  by  a  considerably  less  percentage  of  steel  workers  than 
of  all  American  workers. 

The  question  of  the  12  hour  day  in  the  steel  industry  has 
a  social  side,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  several  social  sides,  apd 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  each  of  them.  From  the  way 
in  which  it  has  been  so  frequently  presented  it  has  been, 
and  doubtless  will  continue  to  be,  discussed  from  a  sen- 
timental point  of  view.  But  the  facts  cannot  be  deter- 
mined by  social  or  sentimental  arguments  and  social  and 
sentimental  arguments  at  least  ought  to  be  determined  on 
the  facts. 

The  facts  very  plainly  are  that  if  steel  working  hours  are 
"inhuman"  and  "relics  of  barbarism  without  valid  excuse" 
— if  12  hour  workers  are  being  "un- Americanized  "  in  "scores 
of  thousands,"  the  same  indictment,  and  in  some  particulars 
a  worse  indictment  will  have  to  be  brought  against  working 
conditions  throughout  the  country,  for  steel  working  hours 

'  As  already  emphasized  this  percentage  of  course  becomes  corre- 
spondingly less  in  proportion  as  the  industry  is  interpreted  to  include 
various  steel  finishing  departments. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       139 

represent  a  little  better  than  a  cross-section  of  average 
American  working  hours  as  they  were  in  19 14 — not  to  men- 
tion the  working  hours  on  which  America  and  Americanism 
were  built. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HAZARDS  AND  HARDSHIPS  OF  STEEL  WORK 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  its  "Conclusions"  (page  12, 
line  13)  states: 

"Steel  jobs  were  largely  classed  as  heavy  labor  and  hazardous." 

It  generalizes  on  page  98  and  elsewhere  in  regard  to  the 
steel  workers' 

"Exhaustion  due  to  overwork. " 

It  says  on  page  67  that: — 

"  It  was  surprising  in  view  of  the  reputation  which  the  Steel  Corpora- 
tion had  been  accorded  for  safety  to  find  so  large  a  number  of  strikers 
complaining  about  hazards.  They  described  with  specificness  menaces 
to  limb  or  life,  concerning  which  they  had  complained  to  foremen  arid 
superintendents  month  in  and  month  out  without  avail. " 

It  states  later  on  the  same  page  that : — 

".  .  .  it  was  inadvisable  to  pay  great  heed  to  the  number  of  crooked- 
legged  men  alwaj's  seen  in  the  streets  of  a  steel  mill  town." 

It  emphasizes  on  page  66 : — 

"The  Steel  Corporation  set  up  a  Safety  Department  which  has  been 
the  recipient  of  many  medals.  Only  statistics  can  determine  to  what 
extent  the  safety  campaign  is  adequate.  Statistically  steel  still  ranks 
with  mining  for  fatal  accidents" 

— and  makes  similar  statement  either  directly  or  by  insinu- 
ation in  many  other  places  throughout  the  Report. 

140 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       141 

There  is  no  question  that  certain  operation  in  steel  pro- 
duction involve  hard  work  just  as  certain  operations  in 
every  other  basic  industry  involve  hard  work.  Plowing  is 
hard  work.  Pitching  hay  is  hard  work.  The  handling  of 
heavy  merchandise  in  transportation  is  hard  work.  Driv- 
ing railroad  tunnels  through  great  mountains  or  subway 
tunnels  under  New  York  City  involves  hard  work.  Lum- 
bering, mining,  firing  engines  on  railroads  or  steam  ships 
and  a  hundred  and  one  other  jobs — whose  regular  perform- 
ance is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  very  existence  of  modem 
society — all  involve  hard  work. 

Again  there  is  no  question  that  certain  operations  in  steel 
production  involve  hazards  just  as  mining,  lumbering, 
railroading,  fishing,  building  construction  and  many  other 
operations  involve  hazards.  Almost  every  act  of  living 
involves  hazards,  of  which  taking  a  bath  is  the  single  most 
hazardous  common  act  of  all,  for  30%  of  all  accidents  in 
and  around  a  home  result  from  slipping  on  the  modem 
porcelain  bathtub. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  equally  unquestionable  that  one 
of  the  major  efforts  and  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  achieve- 
ments of  modern  progress  has  been  the  effort  and  achieve- 
ment in  reducing  the  extra  hard  labor  and  the  extra  hazards 
in  both  modem  industry  and  in  all  modem  life.  From  the 
thrasher  to  the  tractor  scores  of  machines  have  reduced 
the  physical  labor  of  farming.  The  automatic  shute  for 
loading  and  the  automatic  dumping  device  for  unloading 
are  typical  of  similar  conspicuous  achievements  in  reducing 
the  hard  manual  labor  in  railroading.  And  both  these  are 
typical  of  the  extent  to  which  industry  has  been  able  to  go 
in  reducing  both  the  hard  work  and  the  hazard  of  many  of 
its  operations.  Nevertheless,  handhng  a  four  gang  plow 
12  or  14  hours  a  day  with  a  tractor  is  still  hard  work. 
Firing  a  locomotive,  pitching  hay,  mining  coal  or  copper, 
loading  a  steamship,  cutting  and  rafting  timber,  no  less 
than  any  operation  in  the  steel  industry,  are  all  hard  and 
sometimes  hazardous  work.     Yet  every  one  of  these  is  so 


142     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

necessary  to  the  whole  functioning  of  society  that  to 
eliminate  them  would  largely  reduce  all  modern  society 
to  the  primitive  individualistic  basis  where  every  man 
would  be  subject  to  the  even  harder  labor  and  often  even 
greater  hazards  of  primitive  existence. 

Given  the  facts  of  the  laws  of  nature — that  molten  metal 
burns,  that  speed  involves  risks,  that  heavy  objects  require 
heavy  effort  to  handle — on  the  one  hand ;  and  on  the  other 
hand  that  modern  society  demands  to  be  heated  and  fed 
and  transported,  there  inevitably  exists  the  absolute  neces- 
sity that  men  work  hard  and  face  hazards.  The  only  basis 
of  progress  therefore  is  to  reduce  such  hard  work  and  such 
hazards  as  much  as  possible  under  the  circumstances. 

The  pertinent  question  therefore,  in  regard  to  hard  work 
and  hazards  in  the  steel  industry,  or  any  other  industry  is 
whether  or  not  men  are  forced  to  work  harder  than  is  neces- 
sary or  have  to  face  hazards  that  may  be  made  unnecessary. 

Unless  the  Interchurch  Report  means  that  "steel  jobs 
were  largely  classed  "  as  heavier  labor  than  average  or  neces- 
sary, or  as  more  hazardous  than  average  or  necessary,  its 
whole  statement  in  regard  to  hard  work  and  hazards  in  the 
steel  industry  means  nothing  at  all.  That  the  Interchurch 
Report  does  mean  to  give  the  impression  that  most  steel 
work  is  far  harder  than  average  or  necessary  and  far  more 
hazardous  than  average  or  necessary,  is  entirely  plain  from 
its  statements  above  quoted  and  from  the  whole  nature  of 
its  arguments  and  conclusions  on  this  point. 

The  Interchurch  Report  makes  its  most  specific  argument 
as  to  the  hardship  of  steel  labor  in  connection  with  the 
twelve-hour  day — resting  its  case,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
chiefly  upon  a  large  number  of  quotations  from  the  alleged 
diaries  of  two  anonymous  12-hour  workers.  The  actual 
facts  as  to  the  nature  of  12-hour  work  however,  have  al- 
ready been  sufficiently  emphasized. 

In  addition  to  its  specific  argument  as  to  the  hardship 
of  12  hour  work,  the  Interchurch  Report  attempts  to  build 
up  an  impression  of  the  hardship  of  steel  work  in  general 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       143 

by  mere  constant  repetition  of  such  phrases  as  that  "steel 
is  a  man  killer" — that  the  men  work  "to  the  point  of  daily 
exhaustion" — to  "old  age  at  40, "  etc.,  etc. 

Some  ten  years  ago,  Mr.  John  A.  Fitch,  who  also  wrote  the 
foreword  to  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster's  book  The  Great  Steel 
Strike,  and  who  is  listed  by  the  New  York  legislative  in- 
vestigation as  per  footnote,'  published  a  magazine  article, 
entitled,  "Old  Age  at  Forty"  in  which  he  particularly  em- 
phasized the  hard  nature  of  steel  work.  Although  this 
article  referred  only  to  conditions  of  ten  years  and  generally 
longer  ago,  before  much  of  the  present  automatic  machinery 
had  been  installed,  the  Interchurch  Report  particularly 
dwells  on  this  phrase,  "Old  Age  at  Forty"  and  on  the 
facts  which  Mr.  Fitch  then  alleged.  This  same  article 
was  also  several  times  referred  to  in  the  testimony  be- 
fore the  Senate  Investigating  Committee. 

As  direct  evidence  on  the  accuracy  of  this  talk  about 
"Old  Age  at  Forty"  while  at  the  Homestead  plant,  the 
Senate  Committee  obtained  statistics  (Page  529, Part  II  of  the 
Senate  Hearings) ,  showing  the  ages  of  all  the  different  em- 
ployees in  that  plant.  This  table  shows  that  4  of  the 
workers  in  this  mill  are  over  70 — 24  between  65  and  70 — 64 
between  60  and  65 — 132  between  55  and  60 — 216  between 
50  and  55 — and  that  27.6%  of  the  entire  working  force 
were  men  over  forty  years  old  which,  even  without  consider- 
ing the  fact  that  60%  of  the  entire  working  force  here  was 

'  The  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  on  Radicalism  in  its  index 
lists: 

"Fitch,  John-  A. 
Assistance  in  preparation  I.  W.  W.  pamphlet.     Page  1093. 
Industrial  editor  The  Survey.     Page  1093. 
Memberl.W.W.  defense  committee.     Page  1094. 
Lecturer  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research.     Page  1121. 
('Technical  Advisors'  to  the  Interchurch  Commission.) 
National  Committee  American  Civil  Liberties  Union.      Page 

1101-1989. " 
Special  attention  is  called   to   the  full  context  of  the  pages 
referred  to. 


144     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

unskilled  common  labor  with  their  large  labor  turnover,  is  a 
remarkably  high  average  for  any  industry. 

The  Senate  Committee  also  interrogated  a  nimiber  of 
witnesses  either  specifically  in  regard  to  the  hardship  of 
steel  work  or  generally  as  to  the  nature  of  steel  work  and  the 
attitude  of  the  men  toward  the  work. 

Mr.  T.  J.  Davis  who  had  formerly  been  for  14  years  a 
member  of  the  Amalgamated  Association  (labor  union) 
who  was  a  delegate  to  the  1902  Union  convention  and  was 
for  a  time  National  Deputy  Vice  President  of  the  Union,  in 
testifying  for  the  steel  companies  emphasized  (Senate 
Hearings,  Part  I,  page  439)  the  hard  nature  of  his  own  work 
but  stated  that  men  in  such  processes  only  worked  the  8 
hour  shift  and  actually  seldom  more  than  7  hours  a  day, 
for  which  he  received  $1 7  a  day.  Mr.  Davis  also  stated  that 
he  had  been  in  the  rolling  mills  34  years  and  had  been  doing 
that  particular  kind  of  work  for  18  years  and  yet  was  still 
hardy  enough  at  55  years  of  age  to  have  spent  15  months 
with  the  A.  E.  F.  in  France. 

Mr.  Edward  M.  Lynch  of  the  McKeesport  Mills,  also 
formerly  a  union  man,  stated  he  was  50  years  old  and  had 
worked  for  the  company  "34  or  35  years."  He  also  stated 
that  he  had  "what  is  termed  the  hardest  job  in  the  mills 
where  I  work — the  heaviest  job,"  but  he  stated  it  with  pride 
rather  than  as  a  complaint.  He  worked  ten  hours  and  ten 
minutes  on  day  turn  and  12  hours  on  night  turn  "for  $11 
a  day"  (Senate  Report,  Part  I,  page  459). 

Mr.  Richard  Raymond,  an  Englishman  by  birth,  who 
was  a  day  laborer  at  $6.03  a  day  in  the  Vandergrift 
Sheet  and  Tin  Mill  testified  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  II, 
page  691): 

The  Chairman:  Do  you  want  to  work  12  hours  a  day  yourself? 

Mr.  Raymond:  Yes,  sir,  I  can  stand  12  hours  a  day. 

Senator  McKellar:  Why  do  you  want  a  12-hour  day? 

Mr.  Raymond:  I  am  like  the  rest,  I  want  to  get  what  money  I  can. 

Mr.  Ashmead:  How  old  are  you,  Mr.  Raymond? 

Mr.  Raymond:  Sixty-seven. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       145 

Mr.  A  shmead:  Have  conditions  been  improving  in  the  steel  c»mpany 's 
plants  among  the  laboring  classes? 

Mr.  Raymond:  It  has  been  improving  in  r^ard  to  money  matters 
and  I  am  certain  of  one  thing  which  has  been  improving — that  men 
certainly  do  not  work  nearly  so  hard  as  I  had  to  when  I  first  came  here. 

Among  the  strike  leaders  special  witnesses  were  many  ex- 
workers  who  were  obviously  most  disgruntled.  Yet  among 
the  many  complaints  of  such  strikers  a  careful  reading  of 
the  whole  Senate  evidence  does  not  reveal  that  even  these 
particularly  hostile  witnesses  made  any  specific  complaint 
concerning  the  hardships  of  steel  work. 

The  Senate  Committee,  also  in  the  course  of  the  investiga- 
tion, personally  visited  numerous  mills  and  talked  with  a 
large  number  of  representative  employees  of  all  types  who 
were  at  work  and  a  large  number  of  strikers  whom  they 
met  haphazard  on  the  street. 

The  testimony  thus  adduced  was  taken  entirely  from 
men  chosen  at  random  by  the  Senators  themselves.  The 
interviews  were  taken  down  verbatim  and  reported  in 
full  in  the  Senate  Hearings.  A  large  number  of  these  men 
did  not  know  who  it  was  that  was  interviewing  them.  They 
all  seemed  to  talk  with  the  utmost  freedom  and  frequently 
with  a  profanity  that  indicated  anything  but  restraint  or 
intimidation  on  their  part.  All  the  evidence  was  given 
during  the  strike  when  grievances  are  naturally  exaggerated 
and  multiplied.  Yet  among  all  the  strikers  thus  inter- 
viewed, except  for  one  man  who  admitted  he  was  sickly  and 
who  remarked — but  merely  incidentally — that  he  "had to 
work  like  a  mule,"  no  worker  or  striker  as  far  as  can  be  dis- 
covered either  mentioned,  or  directly  or  indirectly  referred 
to  his  work  as  being  either  hard  or  hazardous. 

As  regards  hazard,  it  is  a  fact  that  has  received  the  widest 
publication  that  the  steel  industry  in  general  and  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation  in  particular  have  made  a  most  conspicu- 
ously successful  effort  in  the  installation  of  safety  devices 
and  the  organizations  of  safety  systems  among  employees. 
In  competition  with  every  other  industry  in  every  natioo 


146     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

in  the  world,  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  has  received  the 
highest  award  for  its  exhibit  of  safety  devices  and  of  its 
special  systems  for  promoting  safety  among  its  employees 
at  practically  every  prominent  safety  congress  held  in  this 
country  or  abroad  in  recent  years.  This  single  corporation 
has  7000  of  its  employees  organized  into  special  safety  com- 
mittees with  ex-committee  men  to  the  number  of  35,000  as 
ex-officio  members.  It  has  organized  an  elaborate  system 
of  competition  for  prizes  awarded  for  the  prevention  of 
accidents  or  for  ideas  that  will  contribute  to  lessening  ac- 
cidents .  These  facts  too  have  been  given  the  widest  publica- 
tion and  are  emphasized  in  detail  in  the  Senate  Hearings. 

The  Interchurch  Report  recognizes  the  U.  S.  Steel  Cor- 
poration's safety  efforts  in  this  way.     It  says,  page  66: 

"...  the  Steel  Corporation  set  up  a  Safety  Department  which  has 

been  the  recipient  of  many  medals.     Only  statistics  can  determine  to  what 

extent  the  safety  campaign  is  adequate.     Statistically  steel  still  ranks  with 

mining  for  fatal  accidents.     The  191 8  report  of  compensable  accidents 

for  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  gives  the  four  largest  hazardous  industries 

as  follows: 

Per  Cent  of 

Number  Total 

Mines  and  Quarries 23,161  33-12 

Metals  and  Metal  Products 22,222  31.78 

Public  Service 4.985                      7-13 

Building  and  Contracting 4»i84                      5.98 " 

and  then  goes  straight  on  to  the  succeeding  page : 

"  It  was  surprising,  in  view  of  the  reputation  which  the  Steel  Corporation 
had  been  accorded  for  safety,  to  find  so  large  a  number  of  strikers  com- 
plaining about  hazards.  .  .  .  Without  adequate  statistics  it  was  impossible 
to  weigh  the  value  of  these  complaints,  just  as  it  was  inadvisable  to  pay 
great  heed  to  the  number  of  crooked-legged  men  always  seen  in  the  streets  of  a 
steel  mill  town." 

Aside  from  certain  quotations  from  individual  strikers 
that  a  certain  job  was  one  on  which  a  man  if  he  wasn't  care- 
ful might  be  badly  burned,  or  that  a  worker  had  fallen  from 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       147 

steps  which  were  greasy/  etc.,  the  Interchnrch  Report  con- 
fines its  evidence  as  to  the  hazardous  nature  of  steel  work 
to  the  foregoing — the  statement  that  "only  statistics  can 
determine  to  what  extent  the  (U.  S.  Steel  Corporation) 
safety  campaign  is  adequate, "  followed  by  a  table  of 
"statistics"  and  in  the  next  paragraph  the  statement  that 
"without  adequate  statistics,"  the  conplaints  of  workers  as 
to  hazards  cannot  be  weighed — followed  by  an  obvious  and 
pointed  insinuation. 

Upon  analysis  both  the  "statistics"  that  are  given  and 
the  complaint  about  the  lack  of  statistics  become  particu- 
larly interesting. 

Conspicuously  featured  and  in  detail  in  the  record  of  the 
Senate  Investigation  (Part  i,  page  188)  is  a  table  of  the 
official  insurance  rates  of  the  Prudential  Life  Insurance 
Company  on  each  particular  type  of  steel  work  based  on  the 
hazard  or  lack  of  hazard  of  that  work. 

This  table  shows  that  while  in  1908,  steel  "blowing"  was 
regarded  as  hazardous  and  the  insurance  rate  was  $13.22 
per  $1000,  age  35;  by  1919,  that  occupation  was  regarded 
as  normal  and  non-hazardous.  The  insurance  rate  for 
"blast  furnace  keeper"  which  in  1908  was  $13.22  (hazard- 
ous) was  in  1919  $2.77  (non-hazardous).  In  the  same  way 
throughout  the  1 1  principal  processes  of  steel  making  which 
were  in  1908  regarded  as  hazardous,  in  19 19  all  such  hazards 
had  become  so  reduced  or  eliminated  that  whereas  the 
average  rate  for  these  occupations  had  been  $10.60  in  1908, 
in  19 19  the  average  rate  on  the  same  occupations  was  less 
than  $4.00. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  Interchurch  Report  refers 
constantly  to  the  Senate  Hearings  and  refers  at  least  once  to 
the  page  in  the  Senate  Hearings  which  faces  this  conspicu- 

•  From  the  testimony  of  George  Colson,  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  quotes  through  a  full  page  (67)  but  whose  effect  is  afterward  very- 
much  modified  by  the  cross-examination  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
does  not  quote;  for  which  see  Senate  Hearings,  pages  728-735  and  page 
374  piesent  analysis. 


148     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ous  and  plainly  headed  table.  Still  it  complains  about 
statistics  not  being  available. 

The  first  reference  to  an  outside  authority  made  by  the 
Interchurch  Report  in  the  chapter  in  which  it  discusses 
"hazard"  is  to  Senate  Document  no:  "Conditions  of  em- 
ployment in  the  iron  and  steel  industry,"  and  it  refers  to 
this  document  frequently  elsewhere.  This  Doctunent  no 
consists  of  four  volumes  of  which  the  whole  last  volume — 
341  pages — is  devoted  to  a  study  of  "Accidents  and  ac- 
cident prevention  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry."  Its  con- 
clusions however,  are  the  opposite  of  those  expressed  by  the 
Interchurch  Report. 

Also  between  1913  and  1919  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  published  in  its  various  Monthly  Reviews  at 
least  three  elaborate  statistical  studies  of  accident  "fre- 
quency" in  the  iron  and  steel  industry,  one  of  which  is 
specifically  referred  to  in  connection  with  the  prominent  in- 
surance statistics  on  page  188  in  the  Senate  Hearings  which 
the  Interchurch  Report  did  not  see  although  it  found  and 
refers  to  an  obscure  sentence  on  the  opposite  page.  The 
conclusions  of  all  of  these  are  also  the  opposite  of  those  of 
the  Interchurch  Report. 

Undoubtedly  the  Interchurch  Report  cites  or  quotes 
from  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly 
Review  for  October,  1919  more  frequently  than  from  any 
other  document.  Even  the  most  casual  reference  to  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Review,  October,  1919,  shows  that 
the  most  conspicuous  section  in  this  whole  docirment, 
running  through  page  after  page  of  tables  and  striking 
curves  and  charts,  is  a  most  detailed  statistical  study  of 
accident  "frequency,"  1913  to  1919,  in  the  iron  and  steel 
industry. 

At  the  end  of  these  elaborate  detailed  government  statis- 
tics in  regard  to  the  specific  subject  on  which  the  Inter- 
church Report  complains  of  the  lack  of  adequate  statistics, 
appears  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  conclusion  (page  231- 
12 1 9):— 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       149 

"It  is  obvious  that  the  efforts  of  the  safety  organization  in  these 
mills  were  well  adapted  to  meet  and  control  minor  injuries.  The  curve 
of  frequency  is  a  sure  index  of  success  or  failure  in  this  particular.  The 
organization  did  not,  probably  could  not,  control  the  tendency  to  rise 
during  the  period  of  adjustment  to  war  conditions  (raw  labor  was  being 
hire  d)  but  it  did  prevent  a  rise  above  the  peak  established  in  the  pre- 
war conditions  of  1913.  Further,  with  the  establishment  of  relatively 
stable  conditions,  it  was  able  to  bring  about  a  remarkable  and  continuous 
decline  in  frequency  rates." 

Moreover  so  remarkable  did  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
regard  the  results  achieved  by  the  Safety  Organizations  in 
the  iron  and  steel  industry  in  reducing  accidents  even  during 
the  war  period  that  a  few  months  later — but  still  before 
the  Interchurch  Report  was  published — it  devoted  pages 
151-1457  to  165-1469  of  its  June,  1920  Monthly  Review  to  a 
further  elaborate  statistical  study  of  this  subject  which 
states  in  conclusion  that : 

"  I.  Whatever  form  of  classification  is  used  [the  fundamental  depart- 
ments, production  groups,  or  cause  groups]  the  same  trend  is  shown. 

"2.  The  period  just  prior  to  the  war  was  a  period  of  industrial  de- 
cline .  .  .  accident  rates  dropped  more  rapidly  than  employment. 

"3.  As  soon  as  the  effect  of  European  war  orders  began  to  be  felt  in 
this  country  employment  began  to  increase.  The  accession  of  in- 
experienced men  increased  even  more  rapidly.     Accident  rates  went  up. 

"4.  The  iron  and  steel  industry  was  alarmed  by  the  increasing  acci- 
dent occurrence  and  undertook  a  strenuous  counter-campaign. 

"5.  This  was  very  successful  in  controlling  and  finally  causing  a 
decline  in  minor  injury. 

"6.  Major  injury  was  not  controlled  so  perfectly  but  was  prevented 
from  rising  above  the  level  of  igij  (in  spite  of  new  labor)  and  was  finally 
considerably  reduced. 

"  This  review  of  the  war  period  strongly  supports  the  contention  that 
even  in  the  most  strenuous  times  it  is  possible  to  hold  in  check  the  tendency 
to  rising  accident  rates  by  the  application  of  the  three  cardinal  methods 
of  the  safety  movement:  (i)  adequate  instruction  of  the  men  in  skilful 
methods  of  work;  (2)  careful  supervision  of  the  well-instructed  men; 
(3)  'engineering  revision'  by  which  the  safety  of  work  places  is  in- 
creased. .  .  . 

"A  considerable  number  of  industrial  concerns  took  the  position  that 
the  demands  of  war  production  were  so  imperative  that  they  were  per- 


150     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH      ' 

fectly  justified  in  relaxing  attention  to  safety  measures  of  all  sorts.  The 
result  is  reflected  in  the  increased  accident  occurrence  registered  by 
most  agencies.  ...  It  is  to  the  great  and  lasting  credit  of  the  iron  and 
steel  industry  that  it  did  meet  the  situation  directly  and  endeavored  to 
combat  the  inevitable  tendency  by  increased  efforts.  The  final  outcome 
of  these  various  efforts  was  first  to  check  the  rising  accident  rates  (due  to  new 
raw  labor)  and  finally  to  bring  them  down  to  points  lower  than  the  pre-war 
level." 

So  much — for  the  time  being — as  regards  the  Interchurch 
Report's  complaint  as  to  the  lack  of  adequate  statistics  for 
which  it  substitutes  its  conclusion  by  insinuation.  As  re- 
gards the  one  table  of  "statistics"  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  does  discover  and  quote  there  are  a  number  of 
equally  interesting  things  to  be  noted. 

The  Interchurch  Report  leads  to  and  quotes  this  one 
table  of  "statistics"  as  follows  (page  66) : 

"  The  Steel  Corporation  ?et  up  a  safety  department  which  has  been  the 
recipient  of  many  medal?.  Only  statistics  can  determine  to  what  extent 
the  safety  campaign  is  adequate.  Statistically  steel  still  ranks  with 
mining  ior  fatal  accidents,  the  1918  report  of  compensable  accidents  for 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania  gives  the  four  largest  hazardous  industries  as 
follows: 

Per  Cent 
Number  of  Total 

Mines  and  Quarries 23,161  33-12 

Metals  and  Metal  Products 22,222  31.78 

Public  Service 4.985                     7-i3 

Building  and  Contracting 4,184                    5.98 " 

In  the  first  place  this  table-clearly  applies  to  the  metal  in- 
dustry as  a  whole,  including  copper  and  brass  smelting  and 
working,  and  so  does  not  prove  anything  pro  or  con  about 
the  steel  mills  or  the  steel  workers  who  were  involved  in  the 
strike.  This  table  could  therefore  mean  exactly  what  the 
Interchurch  Report  tries  to  give  the  impression  it  does  mean 
and  still  prove  nothing  about  hazards  in  the  steel  industry. 
As  it  is,  however,  the  principal  so-called  evidence  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  brings  forward  to  supports  its  conclusion 
that  the  steel  industry  is  particularly  hazardous  and  as  a 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       151 

further  example  of  the  type  of  "evidence"  which  the  Inter- 
chtirch  Report  uses — and  therefore  as  bearing  particularly 
on  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  the  Interchurch  Report 
is  a  competent  or  adequate  document — this  table  is  most 
significant. 

As  regards  the  merits  of  the  table  itself  as  being  adequate 
evidence  in  regard  to  anything  at  all  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
neither  the  table  itself  nor  any  statement  in  connection  with 
it  suggests  the  fact  that  there  are  far  more  men  in  Pennsyl- 
vania engaged  in  mining  and  metal  production  than  in 
Public  Service  or  Building  and  Contracting  and  that  there- 
fore the  percentages  of  accidents  in  these  two  industries 
would  necessarily  be  far  greater,  even  though  the  per  cent 
of  accident  to  men  involved — that  is  the  actual  comparative 
hazards  of  the  industry — were  less.  Giving,  therefore, 
neither  the  number  of  accidents  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  men  employed,  nor  the  number  of  men  among  whom  the 
given  accidents  occurred,  this  table  actually  shows  nothing 
whatever  as  to  the  comparative  hazard  even  of  the  industries 
to  which  it  does  apply. 

Again  it  will  be  noted  that  this  table  is  not  a  table  of  all 
industrial  accidents  but  merely  of  "compensable"  ac- 
cidents; which  mean  accidents  to  the  employees  for  which 
the  employer  is  liable  under  the  particular  technical  rulings 
of  the  compensation  law.  These  constituted,  as  the 
Pennsylvania  Labor  Bulletin  from  which  this  Interchurch 
Table  is  taken  (indirectly)  plainly  states,  but  37.8%  of  all 
industrial  accidents.  Moreover  the  relation  between  * '  com- 
pensable" accidents  and  all  accidents  varies  widely  in  dif- 
ferent industries.  For  instance,  comparison  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania figures  for  "compensable"  with  the  figures  for 
total  accidents  at  once  shows  that  while  in  the  metal 
trades  39%  of  all  accidents  are  "compensable,"  in  public 
service  only   15%   are  "compensable."^     In  other  words 

■  Bulletin  Penn.  Dept.  Labor  and  Industry,  Vol.  VI  (1919)  No.  I, 
pages  237,  268  and  276. 


152     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  Interchurch  Report  is  trying  to  show  comparative 
hazards  of  different  industries  by  comparing  39%  of  the 
accidents  in  one  of  these  industries  with  only  15%  of  the 
accidents  in  another  industry. 

In  other  words  this  table,  by  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  pretends  to  show  the  great  hazards  of  the  steel  in- 
dustry— first,  does  not  refer  to  the  steel  industry;  second, 
does  not  show  hazard  at  all  because  it  does  not  show  the 
relation  of  accidents  to  number  of  men  employed ;  and  third, 
while  it  includes  39%  of  all  accidents  in  one  of  the  industries 
shows  only  15%  of  the  accidents  in  another  industry. 

But  not  only  does  this  table  in  no  sense  mean  what  the 
Interchurch  Report  gives  the  impression  it  means,  but  the 
facts  are  the  direct  opposite  of  what  the  Interchurch  Report 
tries  to  show  from  the  table. 

The  1 91 9  and  1920  Bulletin  of  the  Pennsylvania  State 
Department  of  Labor  and  Industry — from  which  this  Inter- 
church Report  Table  is  (indirectly)  taken,  shows  ^: 

1918  1919 

All  Industrial  Accidents ...     1 84,844  1 52 ,455 

Fatal  Accidents 3,403  or  (  1.8%)  2,569  or  (  1.7%) 

Serious  Accidents 53.783  or  (29.1  %)  38,942  or  (25.5%) 

Minor  Accidents 127,658  or  (69.1%)  111,033  or  (72.8%) 

"Compensable  Accidents".       69,920  or   37.8% 

Now  while  thus  plainly  showing  the  percentage  of  fatal, 
serious  and  minor  accidents  among  all  industrial  accidents 
the  Pennsylvania  statistics  for  the  year  191 8  do  not  show 
the  same  facts  for  each  individual  industry.  But  for  191 9 — 
for  which  figures  and  percentages  are  in  general  practically 
the  same  as  for  1918 — the  proportion  of  fatal,  serious  and 
minor  accidents  for  the  individual  industries  is  given. 

Bulletin,    Pennsylvania   State   Department   Labor   and 

'  1919  figures  from  original  source,  page  49. 
19 1 8  figures  from  indirect  source  used  by  Interchurch  Report  and 
referred  to  later. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       153 

Industry,  Vol.  VII,  No.  2,  1920,  Table  4,  beginning  page  40 
reduced  to  percentages  shows : 

ALL  INDUSTRIAL  ACCIDENTS 

FaUU  Serious  Minor 

Building  and  Contracting i-55%  27.7%  70.7% 

Metals  and  Metal  Products 94%  23.1%  75-96% 

Public  Service 1.84%  26.96%  71.18% 

Now  it  is  to  be  particularly  noted  that  the  Interchurch 
Report  quotes  without  further  explanation  its  small  part  of 
Pennsylvania  statistics  on  "Compensable"  accidents  in 
metal  trades  as  compared  with  building  and  public  service 
immediately  after  emphasizing  the  high  percentage  of  fatal 
accidents  in  the  steel  industry.  But  the  Pennsylvania 
figures  themselves  thus  actually  plainly  show  that  in  the 
building  trades  the  percentage  of  fatal  accidents  (1.55%)  is 
exactly  60%  higher  than  in  the  metal  trades  (.94%);  and 
the  percentage  oi  fatal  accidents  in  public  service  (1.8%)  is 
just  twice  as  high  as  in  the  metal  trades. 

Moreover  it  will  also  be  noted  that  the  percentage  of 
serious  accidents  in  the  metal  trades  (23.  i  %)  is  less  than  in 
the  building  trades  (27.7%),  less  than  in  public  service 
(26.96%)  and  less  than  in  the  average  industry  (25.5%).^ 

But  there  is  still  one  other  point  to  be  noted. 

This  table  as  printed  in  the  Interchurch  Report  appears 
in  a  very  different  form  than  that  in  which  it  is  given  in  the 
original  1919  (for  191 8)  Bulletin  of  the  Pennsylvania  De- 
partment of  Labor  and  Industry — being  in  fact  merely  a 
resume  of  pages  of  tables  in  the  original  document.  This 
is  of  course  not  significant  in  itself — but  on  page  233-1221 
of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Monthly  Review  October,  igig 

•  The  student  interested  in  this  subject  of  comparative  hazards  per  se 
will  find  much  interesting  material  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Casualty, 
Actuarial  and  Statistical  Society  of  America  1918-19,  Volume  v., 
Numbers  11  and  12  where  among  other  things  it  is  shown  that  the 
average  accident  insurance  premium  for  the  four  iron  and  steel  classifica- 
tions given  is  .57  while  for  "house  construction"  it  is  .78. 


154     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

there  appears  a  r^sum6  of  the  191 8  Pennsylvania  state 
figures  as  to  compensable  accidents.  This  table  plainly 
states  that  these  figures  are  a  special  class  of  37.8  of  all  the 
industrial  figures.  It  makes  no  pretense  of  showing  com- 
parative hazards  (which  of  course  it  does  not  show)  but 
plainly  states  that  the  value  of  the  table  lies  in  its  last  two 
columns — which  the  Interchurch  Report  leaves  out — show- 
ing the  comparative  amount  of  accident  compensation  and 
the  comparative  per  cent  of  accident  compensation  the 
different  industries  paid  in  191 8. 

Except  that  the  Interchurch  table  leaves  out  some  of  the 
industries  and  all  of  the  figures  that  give  this  table  any 
meaning  and  omits  all  the  careful  explanation  as  to  what  it 
does  mean,  this  special  U.  S.  Labor  October,  1919  resum6  of 
the  complex  original  Pennsylvania  figures  and  the  Inter- 
church Resume  are  exactly  identical. 

Moreover  this  table  in  U.  S.  Bulletin,  October,  1919,  is  part 
of  the  conspicuous  section  already  referred  to  of  page  after 
page  of  statistics  and  charts  in  regard  to  accident  "fre- 
quency" in  the  iron  and  steel  industry.  It  appears  on  the 
page  opposite  and  facing  that  study. 

The  Interchurch  Report  may  not  have  noticed  that  the 
whole  341  pages  of  Vol.  IV  of  Senate  Document  no,  to 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  frequently  refers,  is  devoted  to 
elaborate  statistics  on  steel  accidents  in  regard  to  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  complains  of  the  lack  of  statistics.  The 
conclusions  of  this  Senate  Document,  however,  are  the  op- 
posite of  its  own.  It  may  have  overlooked  the  several  de- 
tailed statistical  studies  of  the  same  subject  appearing  in 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin  between  1913  and  191 9 
whose  conclusions  are  also  the  opposite  of  its  own.  Even 
though  it  found  an  obscure  sentence  to  refer  to  on  the  next 
and  facing  page,  it  may  also  have  overlooked  the  detailed 
insurance  statistics  in  regard  to  steel  hazards  on  page  188 
of  the  Senate  Hearings.  But  these  also  plainly  show  that 
its  own  conclusions  are  false.  However,  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  a  single  table  in  all  these  studies  which  can  be 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       155 

expurgated  or  otherwise  twisted  out  of  its  true  meaning. 
The  plainly  stated  conclusions  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 
Review,  October,  1919  statistics  are  also  the  opposite  of  its 
own,  but  in  connection  with  the  October,  1919,  study  there 
is  this  one  table  which  if  partly  expurgated  and  taken  out 
of  its  context  can  be  so  featured  as  to  seem  to  show  the 
opposite  of  what  all  other  statistics  plainly  show  and  state. 
The  Interchurch  Report  takes  this  one  table,  expiirgates 
all  the  figiu"es  in  regard  to  percentage  of  compensation, 
leaves  out  the  statement  that  the  table  represents  only  a 
special  37.8%  of  all  industrial  accidents  and  is  used  only  to 
show  percentage  of  compensation,  and  then  so  introduces  and 
features  this  expurgated  table  as  to  make  it  seem  to  bolster 
up  a  conclusion  which  is  the  opposite  of  the  truth. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

EXISTING     RELATIONS     BETWEEN     STEEL     COMPANIES     AND 
THE   STEEL  WORKERS 

The  Interchurch  Report  says  (pages  15  and  11): 

"11.  The  organizing  campaign  of  the  workers  and  the  strike  were 
for  the  purpose  of  forcing  a  conference  in  an  industry  where  no  means  of 
conference  existed. " 

"2.  These  conditions  of  labor  were  fixed  by  the  Corporation  without 
collective  bargaining  or  any  functioning  means  of  conference  also  without 
above  board  means  of  learning  how  the  decreed  conditions  affected  the 
workers." 

"3.  .  .  .  machinery  of  control  gave  .  .  .  but  negligible  information  of 
working  and  living  conditions. " 

"In  normal  times  the  Steel  Corporation  had  no  adequate  means  of 
learning  the  conditions  of  life  and  work  and  the  desires  of  its  employees  " 
(page  22  line  15). 

"In  practice  grievances  which  drive  workers  out  of  the  steel  indus- 
try are  effectually  stopped  from  getting  higher  than  the  first  representa- 
tive of  the  company  reachable  by  the  workers — the  foreman"  (page  26, 
line  17). 

Moreover  in  many  other  places  throughout  the  Report 
it  is  stated  and  emphasized  that  the  steel  companies  had 
little  or  no  practical  interest  in  the  lives  or  working  condi- 
tions of  their  men — that  there  not  only  existed  no  "func- 
tioning machinery  "  through  which  steel  officials  could  learn 
of  the  living  or  working  conditions  of  their  men  or  through 
which  the  men  could  express  their  grievances  or  other  feel- 
ings as  to  working  and  living  conditions  to  the  employers 
who  controlled  these  conditions,  but  that  on  the  contrary 

156 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE        157 

the  "system  of  control"  so  worked  that  all  expressions  of 
grievance  were  arbitrarily  prevented  from  getting  any  higher 
than  the  foreman  who  had  no  authority  to  remedy  them. 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  its  discussion  of  this  whole 
question  rests  the  issues  chiefly  on  the  relationship  between 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  and  its  employees. 

In  regard  to  the  first  point  raised — that  the  steel  company 
has  no  real  interest  in  the  live§  or  working  conditions  of  its 
employees — ^it  is  a  matter  of  general  information  that  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  had  up  to  the  time  of  the 
strike  spent  nearly  $80,000,000  in  providing  shower  baths 
(3,016),  insurance,  old  age  pensions,  churches  (26),  rest 
rooms  (260),  tennis  courts  (105),  baseball  fields  (103),  night 
and  technical  schools,  etc.,  free  for  the  workers  themselves 
— playgrounds  (138),  special  schools  (50),  with  exceptional 
teachers  (215),  and  other  special  facilities  for  the  workers' 
children — community  clubs  (19),  practical  housekeeping 
centers  (20),  special  educational  classes,  etc.,  free  for  the 
workers'  wives — doctors  (359),  niu*ses  (292),  etc.,  etc.  In 
addition  to  this  $80,000,000  spent  outright  for  such  purposes, 
the  Corporation  had  loaned  further  millions  of  dollars, 
practically  without  security,  at  5%  interest,  to  enable  the 
employees  to  build  their  own  homes.  Such  loans  were 
made  to  practically  any  worker  who  wanted  to  build  and 
own  his  own  home  and  at  the  time  of  the  strike  the  Corpora- 
tion had  actually  thus  built  for  rent  or  purchase  by  its 
workers  27,000^  such  homes  of  a  value  of  some  $100,000,000. 

It  is  equally  well  known  that  this  policy  of  improving 
the  employees'  working  and  living  conditions  was  originated 
years  ago  during  a  time  when  there  was  no  question  of 
labor  trouble  and  money  has  been  appropriated  for  such 
purposes  in  just  as  large  amounts  and  often  larger  amoimts 
during  years  when  labor  was  plentiful  and  the  labor  problem 
far  more  a  problem  to  labor  than  to  the  employer. 

An  interest  in  the  better  living  and  working  conditions 

» According  to  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  Bureau  of  Safety,  Sanitation 
and  Welfare  Bulletin  No.  8,  the  number  in  December,  1920,  was  28,260. 


158     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

of  its  employees  which  has  spent  $80,000,000  and  loaned 
other  millions  on  such  losing  terms  is  so  conspicuous  a  fact 
that  the  Interchurch  Report  could  neither  have  overlooked 
it  nor  argued  it  out  of  existence.  Therefore,  except  for  a  few 
sarcastic  references  to  it  as  a  "toilets  policy"  and  a  policy 
of  "grinding  the  faces  of  the  hunkies  and  trusting  to  wel- 
fare to  salve  the  exacerbations,"  the  Interchurch  Report 
entirely  ignores  this  conclusive  evidence  that  the  Steel  Com- 
pany has  shown  a  very  real  interest  in  the  working  and 
living  conditions  of  its  employees.^ 

Moreover  this  expenditure  of  such  immense  sums  to  im- 
prove the  working  and  living  conditions  of  the  employees 
in  no  sense  stands  alone  as  evidence  of  the  interest  which 
prompted  it  but  is  expressly  part  of  a  definite,  carefully 
worked-out  policy  of  the  Steel  Corporation. 

In  his  letter  to  the  strike  committee,  in  his  testimony 
before  the  Senate  Committee,  and  elsewhere,  Judge  Gary 
specifically  stated — which  statements  have  been  widely 
published — that  he  and  the  other  officials  of  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration take  the  greatest  interest  in  the  working  and  living 
conditions  of  their  employees — that  in  fact  he  regards  such 
an  interest  in,  and  such  treatment  of,  his  employees  as  will 

'  This  applies  only  to  the  original  volume  of  the  Interchurch  Report. 
The  second  volume  which  appeared  some  15  months  later  but  unlike 
the  original  volume  has  not  been  widely  reviewed  or  circulated  has  a 
chapter  signed  by  Mr.  George  Soule  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  "Welfare 
Work. ' '  The  mere  statement  of  the  nature  of  this  work  and  of  its  extent 
itself  constitutes  an  impressive  favorable  argument.  Mr.  Soule  makes 
such  a  statement,  in  general,  adequately  and  fairly.  Unfortunately  the 
same  cannot  be  said  for  some  of  his  arguments  and  conclusions.  He 
complains  of  the  stock  subscription  plan  (page  252)  that  "it  is  not  a 
simple  business  proposition,"  and  complains  in  his  summary  of  the 
welfare  policy  that,  "it  is  a  'business  proposition'"  (page  259),  and  is 
otherwise  captious  and  except  in  two  instances  obviously  gives  praise 
grudgingly.  This  chapter  is  particularly  noteworthy,  however,  in  that, 
as  far  as  can  be  discovered,  it  is  the  only  case  in  either  volume  in  which 
any  facts  in  favor  of  the  steel  companies  are  admitted.  In  several  other 
respects  also  this  chapter  is  the  conspicuous  high  water  mark  of  the 
whole  Interchurch  investigation  effort. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       159 

merit  and  get  their  loyal  support  one  of  the  very  most 
important  functions  of  the  company's  management. 

But  an  "investigation"  which  can  calmly  ignore,  except 
for  a  bit  of  passing  sarcasm,  $80,000,000  of  evidence  of  the 
corporation's  interest  in  the  welfare  of  its  employees,  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  consider  seriously  a  mere  official  state- 
ment of  policy.  After  garbling  part  of  Judge  Gary's  testi- 
mony in  order  to  be  more  sarcastic  about  it  (pages  24-25, 
122,  etc.),  the  Interchurch  Report  sweeps  the  whole  state- 
ment of  policy  aside  with  the  insinuation  that  it  is  merely 
for  public  consumption. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  all  such  statements  dur- 
ing the  strike  are  only  repetitions  of  many  similar  state- 
ments made  long  previous  to  the  strike  when  there  was  no 
question  of  labor  trouble,  and  that  many  such  statements 
were  made  as  fundamental  principles  of  management  during 
times  when  general  business  conditions  were  worst,  labor 
was  most  plentiful,  and  when  there  was  otherwise  no  reason 
why  the  Corporation  should,  and  many  reasons  of  immedi- 
ate self-interest  why  it  should  not,  emphasize  such  policies 
and  spend  its  money  to  carry  them  out  unless  the  Corpora- 
tion was  entirely  sincere  in  seeking  the  best  good  of  the 
workers  at  the  time  when  the  worker  needed  assistance 
most. 

On  May  29,  191 1,  during  a  time  of  general  business  de- 
pression and  wage  reductions.  Judge  Gary  said  to  a  group 
of  his  fellow  manufacturers : 

"Gentlemen,  let  us  not  come  to  the  conclusion  of  reducing  wages 
until  we  are  compelled  to  do  so.  Let  us  keep  them  as  high  as  we  can  just 
as  long  as  we  can  ...  (in  order  that  we  may)  .  .  .  take  pleasure  in 
knowing  that  we  are  at  all  times  doing  all  we  can  for  the  people  in  our 
employ  in  keeping  their  wages  up  and  in  bettering  their  conditions. " 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  236,  second  paragraph.) 

Other  employers  did  reduce  wages  at  that  time.     The 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  did  not. 
During  this  same  period  of  depressed  business  conditions 


i6o     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

and  plentiful  labor  Judge  Gary,  on  December  19,  1912, 
and  again  on  December  17,  19 13  issued  the  following 
instructions  to  the  presidents  of  the  subsidiary  companies: 

"It  is  a  question  simply  as  to  whether  or  not  when  you  consider  the 
success  of  your  corporation  and  the  merits  of  the  workman  who  does 
so  much  to  make  its  business  successful,  you  are  giving  him  a  reasonable 
division  or  share  of  the  profits  which  are  realized.  I  do  not  care  whether 
the  question  is  considered  from  the  standard  of  good  morals  or  not, 
...  I  believe  from  the  standpoint  of  what  is  for  the  best  interests  of  your 
companies  ...  it  is  wise  to  deal  with  your  workmen  not  only  fairly  but 
liberally.  ...  It  is  a  pleasure  to  be  connected  with  the  business  when 
you  consider  that,  departing  from  the  general  rules  which  have  obtained 
between  employer  and  employee  throughout  the  world,  you  have  by 
your  treatment  of  these  questions  established  the  relations  which  now 
exist  between  you  and  your  employees. " 

"Now  you  will  have  some  occasion  perhaps  during  the  immediate 
future  to  consider  further  some  of  these  matters  and  they  may  involve 
considerable  cost.  If  so,  I  should  consider  the  money  well  expended. 
It  is  even  possible  that  there  may  be  some  distress  among  some  of  your 
employees  ...  I  hope  you  will  make  an  effort  to  keep  posted. "  (After 
detailed  and  specific  instruction  as  to  what  is  to  be  done  in  the  way  of 
remitting  rent,  keeping  men  working  even  at  a  loss,  etc.,  etc.,  the  state- 
ment concludes,)  .  .  •  "You  may  expect  to  meet  considerable  loss 
during  the  coming  winter  but  if  in  so  doing  you  have  added  to  the  relief, 
benefit  and  comfort  of  employees,  who  in  the  nature  of  things  are  more 
or  less  dependent  upon  you,  it  should  be  a  pleasure. "  (S.  H.,  Part  I, 
Excerpts,  pages  237  to  238), 

As  has  already  been  pointed  out  the  Corporation  operated 
at  considerable  loss  during  this  period  and  stockholders' 
dividends  were  reduced  to  3%  then  to  i^%  but  wages 
were  not  reduced  but  were  kept  up  by  these  reduced 
dividends  and  out  of  surplus  funds.  Moreover  during  this 
same  period  of  1912-1915,  $24,502,699  was  spent  outright  in 
improving  working  and  living  conditions  of  the  employees. 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  stockholders  April  16,  191 7 — 
just  a  year  before  the  unionization  drive  began  and  two 
years  before  the  strike,  Judge  Gary  said, 

"From  time  to  time  efforts  have  been  made  by  outsiders  to  create 
dissension,  to  instill  a  feeling  of  animosity  on  the  part  of  our  men  against 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       i6i 

our  corporation  but  these  efforts  have  failed.  I  say  we  are  proud  of  this 
condition.  .  .  .  We  have  tried  to  treat  our  men  justly  and  liberally  and 
as  one  man  ought  to  treat  another  man  but  not  simply  because  of  our  high 
regard  for  them,  .  .  .  but  also  because  we  realize  as  a  business  proposi- 
tion it  is  for  our  interest  to  do  so.  .  .  .  We  sometimes  receive  letters 
from  stockholders  complaining  because  we  pay  too  large  wages  .  .  .  and 
that  we  had  better  give  to  the  stockholders  in  dividends  a  part  of  the 
money  which  we  are  paying  the  employees.  I  have  one  answer  only  to 
make  to  those  stockholders  ...  it  is  decidedly  to  the  advantage  of  the 
stockholder  to  have  an  organization  that  can  retain  in  its  employ 
(when  there  was  great  labor  shortage  and  the  country  was  full  of  labor- 
agitation)  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  who  are  satisfied  with  their 
condition  and  who  consequently  are  doing  everything  possible  to 
protect  and  benefit  the  corporation"  (Senate  Hearings,  Excerpts, 
pages  238  and  239). 

There  can  be  no  question  then  as  to  the  definite  interest 
of  the  Steel  Corporation  in  the  welfare  of  its  men  and  as  to 
its  deliberate  policy  of  seeking  to  improve  their  working  and 
living  conditions  in  order  to  make  them  more  satisfied  and 
so  more  loyal  and  efficient  employees.  There  remains,  of 
course,  the  question  of  the  result  of  this  interest  and  effort. 

When  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  was  formed, 
it  was  notoriously  the  largest  corporation  in  industrial 
history  and  both  its  size  and  other  conditions  gave  rise  to 
certain  serious  questions  as  to  its  ultimate  success.  Both 
the  amounts  of  capital  involved  and  these  other  conditions 
demanded  that  its  management  should  be  of  the  highest 
ability,  and  certainly  Andrew  Carnegie  and  the  elder 
Morgan  were  men  who  could  judge  and  command  such 
ability.  The  original  capital  stock  of  the  Corporation  was 
some  $800,000,000  and  it  was  widely  considered  that  the 
actual  material  assets  of  the  company  were  less  than  that 
sum.  In  eighteen  years  the  management  of  the  Corpora- 
tion has  not  merely  made  a  complete  success  of  the  original 
venttire  but  without  any  increase  of  capital  has  raised  the  ma- 
terial assets  of  the  company  to  two  and  a  half  billion  dollars. 

When  management  of  this  type  of  proven  ability  appro- 
priates $80,000,000  to  improve  the  working  and  living 


i62     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

conditions  of  its  employees  with  the  express  purpose  both 
by  such  improvements  and  through  removing  any  cause  of 
grievance,  of  obtaining  their  good  will  and  loyalty,  and 
spends  this  money  over  a  period  of  years  during  which  it  caii 
carefully  watch  results  and  vary  the  details  of  its  policy 
accordingly,  surely  the  presumption  of  common  sense  is 
that  such  money  is  not  being  spent  in  larger  and  larger 
quantities  year  after  year  unless  it  shows  results. 

Moreover  while  in  the  coal  industry  which  employs  much 
of  the  same  class  of  labor  as  in  the  steel  industry,  strikes 
and  other  labor  troubles  are  so  constant  that  the  average 
worker  throughout  the  industry  loses,  according  to  the 
U.  S.  Department  of  Labor  figures,  30  days  a  year  from 
strikes;  and  while  repeated  strikes  and  labor  trouble  have 
been  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  phenomena  of  labor  condi- 
tions in  many  other  prominent  industries,  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration under  its  policy  of  thus  taking  the  initiative  and 
the  expense  of  cultivating  the  good  will  of  its  men  went  for 
18  years  up  to  1919  with  only  one  very  ordinary  size  strike 
(in  1909)  which  lasted  only  a  few  weeks  in  a  few  mills. 

This  remarkable  freedom  of  the  steel  industry  from  labor 
trouble  in  the  past  is  of  such  common  knowledge  and  was  so 
conspicuously  featured  at  the  time  of  the  strike  that  both 
the  strike  leaders  and  the  Interchurch  Report  were  compelled 
to  attempt  to  reconcile  it  with  their  allegations  of  the  general 
discontent  of  the  steel  workers.  One  of  the  grounds  on 
which  they  both  attempted  to  do  this  was  by  claiming  that 
the  steel  worker  had  been  so  suppressed  and  intimidated 
that  he  did  not  dare  express  his  grievance.  A  reading  of  the 
Senate  testimony,  in  which  an  ordinary  workman  who  was 
one  of  the  steel  company's  own  witnesses  flatly  contradicted 
Judge  Gary  to  his  face  about  a  minor  matter  and  in  which 
another  worker  contradicted  Judge  Lindabury,  and  in  which 
common  laborers  expressed  themselves  with  much  volu- 
bility and  often  profanity  to  senators,  certainly  fails  to  give 
any  impression  that  the  steel  workers  were  in  any  sense 
suppressed  or  intimidated. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       163 

•  As  a  second  argument  to  try  to  offset  the  well-known 
fact  that  the  steel  companies  in  the  past  had  had  practically 
no  labor  trouble,  the  Interchurch  Report  makes  the  ingenu- 
ous point  that  while  there  may  have  been  no  mass  strikes  in 
the  past,  the  individual  steel  workers  were  constantly  going 
on  "individual  strikes."  On  page  148  the  Interchurch 
Report,  in  attempting  to  emphasize  such  so-called  "in- 
dividual strikes,"  which  it  claims  show  the  steel  workers' 
"rebellious  frame  of  mind,"  points  to  what  it  calls  the  "high 
labor  turnover  in  steel  plants,"  using  as  its  trump  card  in 
this  argument  the  alleged  fact  that  the  labor  turnover  in  the 
Homestead  steel  works  for  191 9  was  59%. 

The  General  Electric  Company  is  generally  regarded  as 
a  model  employer.  It  uses  a  very  large  per  cent  of  labor  of 
high  special  skill.  Its  Schenectady  plant  is  in  a  town  where 
large  numbers  of  other  jobs  are  not  readily  available  and 
so  men  have  a  special  incentive  for  keeping  their  jobs.  The 
plant  is  unionized  and  has  elaborate  systems  of  collective 
bargaining.  The  company  makes  every  effort  to,  and  un- 
questionably succeeds  in,  keeping  its  men  better  than  the 
great  bulk  of  employers  throughout  the  country.  Yet  in 
the  Schenectady  plant  of  the  General  Electric  Company  in 
1 919,  their  labor  turnover  was  68%,  nine  points  higher  than 
the  Interchurch  Report's  figure  for  the  Homestead  plant. 

In  1918  Collier's  Weekly  made  a  special  study  of  the  sub- 
ject of  labor  turnover  in  a  wide  variety  of  industries  and 
published  (April  13,  191 8)  figures  which  showed  that  the 
"usual "  labor  turnover  at  this  time  was  120  to  180%  or  23^ 
to  3J^  times  what  the  Interchurch  alleges  for  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration and  that  at  least  during  this  particular  period  of 
labor  unrest  a  "turnover"  of  1300%  was  "by  no  means 
unparalleled." 

Again  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly 
Review  gives  a  niunber  of  detailed  figures  as  to  labor  turn- 
over during  this  period,  the  March,  I9i9,issue,  page  36, show- 
ing the  following  facts  for  Cincinnati  and  the  September, 
1919,  issue  page  45  for  Chicago. 


i64     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHIIRCH 

Fer  Cent  of  Turnover  Per  Cent  of  Plants 

Cincinnati  Chicago 

Under  50%  turnover 7%  None 

50  to  100%      "       15%  20% 

100  to  150%      "       21%  24% 

150  to  200%      "       21%  16% 

200  to  250%      "       7%  8% 

250  to  300%      "       18%  20% 

300  to  350%      "       None  12% 

350  to  400%      "       7%  None 

400  to  500%      "       4%  None 

The  average  labor  turnover  in  both  these  great  and  diversi- 
fied industrial  centers  was  thus  obviously  at  this  same  time 
some  150%,  yet  the  Interchurch  Report  argues  that  this 
59%  labor  turnover  which  it  alleges  against  the  steel  in- 
dustry proves  the  "rebellious  frame  of  mind"  of  the  steel 
worker.  In  view  of  the  actual  percentages  of  labor  turn- 
over in  industry  as  a  whole  at  this  time  a  59%  turnover 
would  certainly  seem  to  show  a  very  satisfied  frame  of  mind. 

Moreover  the  notorious  fact  that,  at  least  during  1916- 
17-18  when  the  demand  for  labor  in  all  industry  was  so 
great  that  rival  employers  and  a  host  of  employment  agen- 
cies were  combing  the  older  industries  to  get  employees  for 
the  new  war  industries,  the  Steel  Corporation  did  not  lose 
its  workers  but  increased  them  by  over  50%  is  the  best  pos- 
sible evidence  that  the  steel  worker  stuck  by  his  job  because 
he  was  satisfied  with  it  and  not  because  he  was  intimidated 
and  oppressed  into  hopeless  acceptance  of  it. 

It  is  in  connection  with  its  elaborate  and  extensive 
"welfare  work,"  which  the  Interchurch  Report  so  carefully 
refrains  from  discussing,  that  the  Steel  Corporation  has  built 
up  a  most  extensive  organization  which  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port says  it  does  not  possess,*  through  which  it  keeps  in 

'  "The  conditions  of  labor  were  fixed  by  the  Corporation  without 
collective  bargaining  or  any  functioning  means  of  conference  also  without 
any  aboveboard  means  of  learning  how  decreed  conditions  effected  the 
worker." 

"...  Machinery  of  control  gave  but  negligible  information  of  work- 
ing andliving  conditions, "etc., etc.  (Interchurch  Report, pages  11-15). 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       165 

direct  and  constant  touch  with  the  feelings  and  conditions 
of  the  workers,  not  only  in  their  work  but  in  their  homes. 

In  the  operation  of  its  $80,000,000  worth  of  welfare  equip- 
ment, the  Corporation  has  an  organization  of  35,574 
workers,  chosen  from  every  department  and  from  every  class 
of  workers,  who  have  in  the  past  served  on  various  welfare 
committees — as  members  of  safety  committees,  as  officers 
of  employee  clubs,  as  committees  on  the  various  activities 
of  the  workers,  athletics  and  other  forms  of  recreation,  etc. 
As  members  of  such  committees  these  men  worked  in  close 
touch  with  officers  of  the  company,  and  having  established 
this  close  touch,  officers  of  the  company,  as  a  matter  of 
policy,  maintain  this  relationship  as  a  point  of  contact  with 
the  feelings  and  points  of  view  of  all  the  great  body  of 
workers. 

There  is  also  at  all  times  a  similar  group  of  current  active 
committees  composed  of  7258  workers  selected  from  all 
departments  and  classes  of  workers — a  most  considerable 
proportion,  as  is  shown  by  their  names,  from  among  the 
foreign  employees — who  are  in  constant  active  touch  with 
both  the  management  and  the  men. 

This  system  which  has  been  established  and  functioning 
for  years,  which  consists  of  an  organization  of  40  odd 
thousands,  almost  entirely  of  the  workers  themselves,  may 
not  constitute  a  "functioning  means  of  conference"  ac- 
cording to  the  Interchurch  Report's  definition,  but  it  cer- 
tainly is,  despite  the  Interchurch  Report's  statement  to  the 
contrary,  an  "above-board  means"  of  getting  more  than 
"negligible  information  of  working  and  living  conditions."^ 

I  The  special  chapter  on  "Welfare  Work  "  in  the  second  voltime  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  emphasized — partly  in  italics  on  page  257 :  "  It  is 
noteworthy  that  in  this  successful  portion  of  the  Corporation's  labor 
poHcy  it  has  consciously  enlisted  the  cooperation  of  its  employees  as  a  group. 
Committees  of  workmen  have  been  appointed  to  advise  in  the  develop- 
ment of  safety  work  and  help  in  carrying  it  out.  The  committees  are 
not  elected  but  at  least  some  attempt  has  been  made  to  tap  the  resources 
of  practical  knowledge  and  power  in  the  forces  of  labor.  Over  five  thou- 
sand (7258)  employees  are  serving  on  safety  committees  and  about 


i66     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Moreover  the  fact  that  under  this  system,  information  as 
to  working  and  living  conditions  and  the  attitude  of  the  men 
in  regard  to  them  comes  to  the  steel  official  through  members 
of  the  working  force  itself  instead  of  through  outside  pro- 
fessional labor  leaders,  appointed  by  and  responsible  only 
to  outside  professional  labor  officials,  does  not  necessarily 
make  such  information  less  valuable  or  accurate. 

After  stating  that  the  Steel  Corporation's  machinery  of 
control  gave  but  "negligible  information  of  working  and 
living  conditions,"  and  that  the  Steel  Corporation  was 
"without  aboveboard  means  of  learning  how  decreed  con- 
ditions affected  the  workers,"  the  Interchurch  Report  states 
positively  and  repeatedly  that  it  was  impossible  for  steel 
workers  to  get  their  grievances  considered  by  officers  in 
power,  and  that  in  practice : 

"Grievances  which  drive  workers  out  of  the  steel  industry  are  effec- 
tively stopped  from  getting  higher  than  the  first  representative  of  the 
company  reachable  by  the  worker,  the  foreman"  (page  26)  ".  .  .  he 
can't  change  his  foreman  and  he  cannot  get  above  the  foreman,"  (page 
136),  etc.,  etc. 

All  the  evidence,  not  only  in  the  Senate  Hearings,  in- 
cluding the  evidence  given  by  the  strikers'  own  witnesses, 
but  the  evidence  on  the  subject  presented  by  the  Inter- 
church Report  itself  is  definitely  and  positively  to  the 
contrary. 

The  Senate  Investigation  Committee  went  into  con- 
siderable detail  in  regard  to  what  opportunity  the  workers 
had  to  get  their  grievances  reviewed.  Many  workers,  fore- 
men, and  superintendents,  who  were  company  witnesses 
testified  repeatedly  that  any  steel  worker  could  drop  his 

eighteen  thousand  have  been  trained  in  first-aid  and  rescue  work." 
35,574  more  are  ex-members  of  safety  committees,  etc.  Yet  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  it  thus  acknowledges  that  this  number  of  representative 
employees  are  in  necessarily  continual  touch  with  the  management 
the  Interchurch  Report  insists  that  the  management  has  no  "above- 
board  means  of  learning  how  the  decreed  conditions  affected  the  workers'  * 
or  of  getting  more  than  "negligible  information  as  to  living  and  working 
conditions." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       167 

tools  and  walk  right  into  the  Superintendent's  or  even  the 
General  Superintendent's  office  at  any  time  he  felt  he  had  a 
grievance.  They  testified  as  to  various  instances  when  this 
had  happened.  For  instance,  Mr.  T.  J.  Davies,  a  tin  mill 
roller  from  the  Newcastle  plant  who  for  14  years  had  been 
a  union  man,  who  was  a  delegate  to  the  1902  convention  of 
the  Amalgamated  Association,  and  a  deputy  Vice  Presi- 
dent of  that  union,  and  who  had  served  15  months  in 
France,  testified  as  follows  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page 

447): 

"  Mr.  Davies:  Why,  the  hiunblest  man  in  the  mill,  foreign  or  American, 
does  not  have  to  accept  finally  anything  from  them  (foremen).  Any 
grievance  he  may  want  to  make,  he  can  make  it  to  the  foreman  and  if  the 
foreman  won't  take  it  up,  he  can  just  simply  open  the  door  of  the  main 
office  and  walk  right  in  to  the  Superintendent.  That  condition  obtains 
to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  belief — to  my  knowledge  (he  had 
been  34  years  with  the  company  and  had  worked  from  day  laborer  up) 
all  through  the  operations  of  the  company.  If  grievances  are  felt  the 
humblest  man  in  the  mill  can  walk  past  the  foreman  right  to  the  general 
superintendent  and  get  things  remedied  very  quickly. 

"Senator  Phipps:  Do  you  know  of  any  instances  where  committees 
have  been  appointed  to  present  these  grievances  to  the  Superintendent? 

"Mr.  Davies:  I  have  never  known  of  the  necessity.  Each  man — all 
of  us  can  go  off-handedly  if  we  like,  to  the  Superintendent.  .  .  .  We 
can  take  it  to  the  manager.  Things  that  they  want  remedied.  For 
instance  we  had  a  complaint  which  was  a  big  one  and  it  was  taken  to  the 
assistant  Superintendent.  It  was  a  rougher 's  question.  .  .  .  The 
roughers  were  asked  to  do  something.  They  were  asked  to  lift  bars  and 
put  them  in  a  place  that  was  supposed  to  be  of  advantage  to  the  com- 
pany and  the  foreman  said,  'You  have  got  to  lift  them.'  Some  of  the 
-  boys  told  him  it  was  not  necessary  and  they  took  their  complaint  to  the 
manager.  .  .  .  That  was  a  pretty  good  size  committee.  I  suppose 
there  were  about  25  or  30  and  that  is  a  good  size  committee.  They  went 
in  there  to  the  manager  and  took  their  case  up  and  they  didn't  have  to 
do  the  extra  lifting.  ...  It  was  only  a  matter  of  about  18  inches  of 
lift  which  they  saved  by  making  the  complaint  to  the  Superintendent 
but  it  was  listened  to  and  attended  to. " 

But  undoubtedly  even  more  convincing  evidence  on  this 
point  is  that  which  is  given  by  witnesses  brought  by  the 
strike  leaders  themselves  for  the  express  purpose  of  con- 


i68     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

demning  the  steel  company's  system  of  handling  complaints. 
(See  Senate  Hearings,  Part  II,  pages  676,  711,  712,  730.) 

Of  these  perhaps  the  star  witness  for  the  strike  leaders, 
because  he  was  one  of  the  few  Americans  who  testified  for  • 
them,  was  Matt  O'Reilly  of  Donora,  Pennsylvania.     After 
a  page  of  discussion  about  a  petty  quarrel  with  a  foreman, 
the  concluding  testimony  was  as  follows  (page  677,  line  8) : 

"Senator  Stirling:  You  went  back  and  since  that  time  you  never  had 
any  trouble  with  the  foreman? 

"Mr.  O'Reilly:  I  went  back  and  since  that  time  I  never  had  any 
trouble  with  the  foreman  but  I  had  to  go  to  the  Superintendent. 

"Senator  Stirling:  And  in  all  of  your  years  of  work  that  is  the  only 
trouble  you  had? 

"  Mr.  O'Reilly:  That  is  the  only  trouble  I  had. 

"Senator  Stirling:  And  in  this  case  you  had — you  did  get  a  hearing 
from  the  Superintendent,  didn't  you? 

"Mr.  O'Reilly:  I  got  a  hearing  from  the  Superintendent.  I  made  it 
my  business  to  get  a  hearing." 

George Colson,  another  star  witness  for  the  strike  leaders, 
because  he  was  an  American,  and  a  most  disgruntled  wit- 
ness, nevertheless,  speaks  on  page  730  repeatedly  and 
casually  of  taking  up  his  grievance  with  the  Superintendent 
as  a  matter  of  course. 

From  the  point  of  view,  however,  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  statement  that  "grievances  are  effectively  stopped 
from  getting  higher  than  the  foreman,"  the  Interchurch 
Report's  own  evidence  is  undoubtedly  the  most  significant 
of  all  because  it  definitely  proves  that  statement  untrue. 
On  pages  213-218  of  the  Interchurch  Report  appear  ten 
affidavits  or  statements — presumably  of  the  "500  rock 
bottom  affidavits" — in  regard  to  specific  grievances.  Six 
of  these  ten  show  a  common  workman  taking  up  his  grievance 
with  an  officer  higher  than  a  foreman.  The  other  four  do 
not  show  that  the  worker  made  any  effort  to  take  his 
case  higher  than  the  foreman. 

For  instance  it  is  plainly  stated  (Interchurch  Report, 
page  213)  in  regard  to  Joseph  Yart,  obviously  a  foreigner, 
that  his  whole  controversy  was  not  with  his  foreman  but 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       169 

with  the  superintendent  of  the  mill.  Again  it  is  stated 
plainly  (page  214)  that  Charies  Bacha,  also  obviously  a 
foreigner,  took  his  case  from  the  foreman  to  the  Superin- 
tendent, Dunk  May,  and  from  the  Superintendent  to  the 
General  Superintendent,  Mr.  Lumpkin,  and  was  moreover 
allowed  the  privilege  of  taking  up  his  same  case  four  times. 
And  again,  John  Kubarda,  also  obviously  a  foreigner,  was 
told  by  his  foreman,  "Go  down  to  the  general  office  and 
fix  it  up  with  them"  (Interchurch  Report,  page  217). 
Again  on  page  67  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  says : — 

"  It  was  surprising  ...  to  find  so  large  a  number  of  strikers  complain- 
ing about  hazards  .  .  .  concerning  which  they  had  complained  to  iore- 
ra.sD.and  superintendents  monthin  and  month  out.  ..." 

and  there  are  many  other  plain  though  inadvertent  admis- 
sions in  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  that  all  steel  workers 
went  over  their  foreman's  head  to  Superintendent  or 
Manager  constantly  as  a  matter  of  course. 

All  of  the  plain  facts  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  Steel 
Corporation  and  its  men  show  that  the  Steel  Corporation 
deliberately  decided  years  ago  as  a  matter  of  fundamental 
policy  to  attempt  to  depart  from  the  ordinary  basis  of  rela- 
tionship between  capital  and  labor  and  win  the  loyalty  and 
support  of  its  men  by  treating  them  not  only  fairly  but 
generously, — by  voluntarily  raising  wages  and  keeping  wages 
as  high  as  possible,  by  paying  special  attention  to  and  spend- 
ing immense  sums  of  money  on  their  employees'  working 
and  living  conditions — and  by  otherwise  making  a  particu- 
lar effort  to  keep  its  men  specially  loyal  by  keeping  them 
especially  satisfied. 

Through  at  least  ten  years  of  hard  times  as  well  as  good, 
the  Corporation  has  consistently  followed  this  policy. 

It  has  for  years  maintained  a  policy  of  industrial  democ- 
racy under  which,  on  the  testimony  of  hostile  Interchurch 
and  strike  leaders'  witnesses,  any  ordinary  workman,  in- 
cluding the  least  skilled  foreigner,  can  and  does  individually 
take  his  grievance  to  his  Superintendent  or  General  Super- 


170     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

intendent  as  casually  and  repeatedly  as  men  in  other  in- 
dustries go  to  their  foreman. 

In  addition  to  this  simple  direct  method  of  receiving  and 
handling  individual  complaints,  the  Corporation  maintains- 
special  contact  with  its  men  through  committees  consisting 
of  over  40,000  of  the  men  themselves  through  whom  it  is 
in  constant  touch  with  the  general  feehngs  and  points  of 
view  of  its  men,  which  information  it  uses  in  taking  the  in- 
itiative in  giving  them  every  advantage  that  it  reasonably  can. 

Such  a  system  is  not  the  proposed  labor  leader  system 
emphasized  by  the  Interchurch  Report  of  trade  union  col- 
lective bargaining  under  which  professional  labor  leaders 
become  irresponsible  partners  in  managing  many  of  the 
most  vital  functions  in  business.  It  is  a  system  in  which 
men  responsible  for  the  results  of  management  insist  on 
doing  the  managing.  But  it  is  a  system  under  which  the 
management  has  maintained  a  production  efficiency  which 
over  a  period  of  years  has  given  steady  employment  and 
higher  wages  to  more  workers  than  any  other  basic  industry 
under  any  other  type  of  management  has  ever  done  in 
modem  industrial  history.  Moreover,  under  it,  un- 
doubtedly more  men  have  worked  longer  without  any  seri- 
ous labor  trouble  or  agitation  than  in  any  other  industry 
under  any  other  system  in  modern  times. 

It  is  perhaps  easy  to  understand  why,  not  merely  the 
difference  of  this  system  but  particularly  its  success  should 
prove  a  veritable  red  rag  to  the  professional  labor  leader  and 
the  professional  radical  and  make  them  particularly  eager 
to  attack  the  steel  industry  and  particularly  venomous  in 
that  attack. ' 

■  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  at  its  Thirty-ninth  Annual 
Convention  at  Atlantic  City,  June,  19 19,  passed  the  following 
Resolution: 

"Whereas,  many  steel  corporations  and  other  industrial  institutions 
have  instituted  in  their  plants  systems  of  collective  bargaining.  ..." 

"Resolved,  That  we  disapprove  and  condemn  all  such  company 
unions  and  advise  our  membership  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  them; 
and,  be  it  further 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       171 

It  is  not  so  plain,  however,  why  the  Interchurch  Report 
should  ignore  the  existence  of  this  system  and  insist  so 
volubly  in  its  "Conclusions"  in  the  front  of  the  book  that 
steel  officials,  under  the  existing  system,  were  not  and  could 
not  get  in  touch  with  their  men,  and  that  the  men,  under 
existing  conditions,  could  not  take  their  grievances  higher 
than  the  foreman,  when  it  has,  and  itself  plainly  publishes 
in  the  back  of  the  book,  voluminous  and  detailed  evidence 
that  this  is  not  true. 

"Resolved,  That  we  demand  the  right  to  bargain  collectively  through 
the  only  kind  of  organization  fitted  for  this  purpose,  the  trade  xmion.  .  .  .'* 

SPECIAL  NOTE 

The  ten  statements  and  affidavits  referred  to  in  the  preceding  chapter 
constitute  the  only  groups  of  the  500  "rock  bottom"  statements  and 
affidavits,  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  states  that  it  is  chiefly 
based,  which  appear  in  the  main  Report. 

The  last  two  of  these  dociunents  specifically  state  that  the  signer  had 
been  employed  by  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation.  One  of  them,  which  foxir 
times  specifies  that  the  signer  was  discharged  not  by  his  foreman  but  by 
the  Superintendent,  is  dated  without  comment  August  15th,  nearly  2 
months  before  the  Interchurch  investigation. 

The  first  eight  of  these  documents  on  the  other  hand  are  prefaced  with 
the  statement  (page  213)  that  they  are  part  of  200  "signed  statements 
and  sworn  affidavits"  "obtained  in  two  days"  by  "an  investigator  in 
November,  1919."  Two  of  these — No.  7  and  No.  8 — are  "  sworn  affida- 
vits." But  the  notary's  date  on  No.  7  is  February  22,  1919,  and  on  No- 
8,  February  24,  1919.  To  No.  7,  the  Notary  has  also  added:  "Paper 
not  drafted  by  Notary. "  As  to  the  other,  imswom  statements,  the  follow- 
ing is  to  be  noted.  All  recite  facts  alleged  to  have  occurred  from  8  to 
12  months  before  November,  1919.  All  are  also  very  exact  about  dates 
and  other  details — including  exact  quotations  of  alleged  conversations. 
Again  the  language  throughout  is  so  grammatical,  direct  and  otherwise 
such  that  it  seems  hardly  possible  that  the  documents  could  have  been 
composed  by  the  signers.  It  seems  inconceivable  for  instance,  that  Nick 
Poppovich  who  could  not  sign  his  own  name  should  himself  have  said, 
"The  foregoing  occurred  the  forenoon  of  Febniary  22d,"  "I  believe  I 
have  a  right  to  join  a  labor  organization  for  my  protection,"  etc.,  or  that 
John  Kubanda  should  have  said,  "I  verily  believe  that  it  was  through 
ixnion  affiliations  that  I  was  discharged,"  etc.  Other  of  the  documents 
are  very  formally  expressed  throughout  in  the  third  person,  etc.  etc. 


172       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

The  Interchurch  Report,  Volume  II,  page  178,  in  presenting  another 
group  of  its  "rock  bottom"  statements  and  aflfidavits,  admits  that  "the 
language  used  in  many  of  these  documents  is  '  interpreters'  English,' "  the 
docimients  themselves  being  merely  "a  brief  statement,  simimary  or 
affidavit"  composed  by  a  third  party.  The  documents  here  considered 
show  on  their  face  that  they  also  are  thus  composed  by  some  other 
person  than  the  signer. 

In  considering  who  such  third  person  or  persons  in  this  case  were  the 
question  at  once  arises:  is  it  reasonably  possible  that  the  one  investiga- 
tor stated  to  have  "obtained"  these  documents  in  November,  19 19, 
could  have  examined,  often  through  an  interpreter,  100  witnesses  a  day, 
and  in  addition  have  composed,  with  the  frequent  necessity  of  translat- 
ing back  again  and  correcting,  100  statements  a  day,  with  sufficient 
thoroughness  and  accuracy  to  warrant  the  specificness  and  exactness 
with  which  the  facts  are  alleged  throughout  these  documents?  Again, 
is  it  possible  that  any  men,  and  particularly  such  men  as  signed  these 
statements,  could  have  recalled  8  to  10  months  after  the  event,  dates, 
quotations  and  other  details  with  such  exactness  as  these  statements 
give  them?  There  is  moreover  the  fact  that  two  of  these  documents, 
specifically  stated  to  have  been  "obtained"  by  this  investigator  in 
these  two  days,  show  by  notaries'  dates  that  they  were  composed  ten 
months  before  they  were  thus  "obtained." 

Immediately  following  these  ten  "rock  bottom"  doctunents  the 
Interchurch  Report  (top  of  page  219)  says:  "These  are  examples. 
The  range  of  the  commission's  data  is  given  in  a  sub-report."  The  one 
sub-report  published  containing  a  group  of  "rock  bottom"  affidavits 
admits  frankly  (Volume  II,  page  176)  that  part  of  these  docimients  were 
obtained  "from  President  Maurer  of  the  State  Federation,"  i.e.  Pennsyl- 
vania State  Federation  of  Labor.  As  is  shown  in  detail  in  Chapter 
XXIII  and  page  419  of  the  present  analysis  actually  all  the  affidavits 
and  most  of  the  statements  there  presented,  were  "obtained"  from  this 
notorious  radical  who  signed  himself  in  now  published  correspondence 
with  the  MoscowSoviet  as  "representing  300  radical  groups  in42  States." 
These  sections  also  show  in  detail  that  the  documents  themselves  con- 
sist largely  of  utterly  false  or  misleading  statements  skilfully  composed 
for  propaganda  purposes.  Because  of  the  nature  of  the  subject  matter  of 
the  ten  docimients  under  present  discussion,  there  is  no  available 
means  of  checking  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  basic  allegations  upon  which 
they  are  built.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  however,  that  like 
most  of  the  other  "rock  bottom"  affidavits  as  published,  they  were 
composed  long  before  the  Interchurch  investigation  was  thought  of  and 
were  merely  borrowed  by  the  Interchurch  investigators  from  the  strike 
leaders. 


SECTION  B 

Issues  in  the  Steel  Strike  and  arguments  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  which  involve  facts  as  to  the  opinions  of  large  numbers 
of  men — facts  as  to  motives  and  facts  as  to  complex  circum- 
stances, conclusions  as  to  which  can  only  be  reached  by  a  deter- 
mination of  the  weight  of  evidence. 


/ 


173 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ISSUES  IN  THE  STEEL  STRIKE  WHICH  MUST  BE  DETERMINED 
BY  THE  WEIGHT  OF   EVIDENCE 

The  effort  to  unionize  the  steel  industry  was  made  and 
the  strike  was  called  on  the  express  grounds,  as  has  already 
been  emphasized,  that  the  steel  workers  had  certain  griev- 
ances against  the  steel  companies  which  it  had  been  im- 
possible for  them  to  remedy  under  existing  circimistances 
and  for  which  the  promise  of  remedy  lay  in  trade  union 
collective  bargaining  which  the  unionization  effort  and  the 
strike  specifically  aimed  to  establish. 

These  alleged  grievances,  as  stated  by  the  Interchurch 
Report  and  the  strike  leaders,  were  principally  and  specific- 
ally unfairly  low  wages  and  unfairly  long  hours,  and  the 
lack  on  the  part  of  the  men  of  any  voice  in  the  management 
of  their  conditions  of  employment,  which  was  not  only  a 
grievance  in  itself,  but  which  was  the  alleged  cause  of  many 
minor  grievances. 

The  alleged  grievance  of  unfairly  low  wages  has  already 
been  argued  on  the  basis  of  definite  and  known  facts  and  it 
has  been  shown  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  wages  in  the  steel 
industry  were  not  unfairly  low  but  on  the  contrary  were 
conspicuously  high  as  compared  with  other  industries. 

The  alleged  grievance  of  the  hardship  and  hazard  of  steel 
work,  which  is  emphasized  far  more  by  the  Interchurch 
Report  than  by  the  strikers  themselves,  has  been  shown  to 
be  without  merit  in  fact. 

It  has  been  shown  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  the  steel  com- 

175 


176     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

panics  themselves  have  taken  the  greatest  interest  in  the 
welfare  of  the  steel  worker — that  they  have  taken  the  initia- 
tive and  spent  immense  sums  of  money  in  improving  work- 
ing and  living  conditions.  It  has  been  shown  not  only  froni 
general  evidence  but  specifically  from  evidence  which  both 
the  Interchurch  Report  and  the  strike  leaders  presented  in 
regard  to  certain  other  points,  that  the  men,  under  present 
conditions,  have  the  simplest  and  easiest  facilities  for  pre- 
senting any  grievance  they  may  feel. 

The  issue  as  to  working  hours  in  the  steel  industry  centers 
chiefly  around  the  12-hour  day.  In  so  far  as  this  issue  in- 
volves matters  of  fact — as  to  the  number  of  12-hour  workers, 
the  nature  of  12-hour  work,  the  tendency  as  to  working 
hours  in  the  industry,  and  the  relative  length  of  working 
ho\irs  in  the  steel  industry  and  in  American  industry  as  a 
whole — the  Interchurch  argument  and  conclusions  have 
already  been  analyzed  in  detail  and  shown  to  be  not  only 
in  general  contrary  to  the  plain  facts  but  in  2  of  its  3  main 
conclusions  to  be  based  on  clever  manipulations  and  falsi- 
fications or  on  flagrant  misquotation  of  official  statistics. 

The  steel  companies  have  constantly  maintained,  and 
state  this  as  a  leading  reason  for  the  continuance  of  the  12- 
hour  day,  that  the  majority  of  the  12-hour  workers  them- 
selves prefer  these  working  hours  because  of  the  larger 
earnings  they  make  possible.  Mr.  Clayton  L.  Patterson  on 
page  68  of  his  pamphlet,  "The  Steel  Strike  of  1919, "  states 
that,  "according  to  the  best  information  available,"  "half 
of  the  12-hour  workers  prefer  these  hours  because  of  the 
larger  pay";  about  one  fourth  "are  indifferent  or  have  not 
expressed  themselves  on  the  subject"  while  the  remaining 
quarter  "are  willing  to  sacrifice  the  larger  earnings  for  the 
shorter  working  day." 

On  page  99,  paragraph  2,  in  discussing  "  one  of  the  real 
reasons  why  the  12-hour  day  has  persisted  in  the  steel  in- 
dustry,"  the  Interchurch  Report  states  that  for  "30%  of 
steel  workers,"  particularly  the  "simple  foreign  worker," 
"these  possibiUties  of  overtime  .  .  .  constitute  the  bait " 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       177 

and  that  "from  this  30%  the  steel  companies  recruit  their 
12-hour  gang  in  considerable  part." 

This  paragraph  admits  this  fact  not  in  extenuation  but  in 
further  condemnation  of  the  12-hour  day.  Nevertheless, 
in  thus  plainly  stating  that "  30%  of  steel  workers  "  do  prefer 
the  higher  earnings  of  the  12-hour  day,  and  that  "from  this 
30%  the  steel  companies  recruit  their  12-hour  gang, "  which 
"gang"  as  a  matter  of  fact  does  not  constitute  much  if  any 
over  30%  of  all  workers  even  in  primary  production  depart- 
ments— the  Interchurch  Report  has  gone  even  higher  than 
the  steel  companies  themselves  in  its  estimate  of  the  percent- 
age of  12-hour  workers  who  prefer  these  hours. 

By  this  plain  admission  as  to  the  large  proportion  of  12- 
hour  workers  themselves  who  prefer  the  12-hour  day — no 
matter  how  mistakenly — the  Interchurch  Report  would 
seem  plainly  to  eliminate  the  12-hour  day  as  one  of  the 
workers'  grievances  and  make  it  necessary  to  argue  the  12- 
hour  question  entirely  on  the  basis  of  social  expediency, 
irrespective  of  the  wishes  of  the  workers  themselves. 
This  particiilar  paragraph  however,  and  these  particular 
admissions  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  are  only  another 
example  of  its  strange  inconsistencies  and  self-contradic- 
tions, for  throughout  the  rest  of  the  Report,  the  12-hour 
day  is  constantly  featured  as  the  major  grievance  of  the 
steel  workers  and  the  major  reason  why  it  was  claimed  the 
steel  workers  wanted  Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining. 

Whether  or  not  the  majority  of  12-hour  workers  them- 
selves do  desire  the  12-hour  day  because  of  its  higher  earn- 
ings, or,  on  the  contrary  regard  it  as  a  grievance,  of  course 
involves  the  opinion  of  something  over  one  hundred  thou- 
sand such  men,  which,  barring  its  possible  ascertainment  by 
a  fair  and  free  vote  on  this  specific  question,  which  has  not 
and  perhaps  cannot  be  taken,  must  be  determined  on  the 
weight  of  all  such  evidence  as  is  available. 

In  the  same  way,  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  other 
working  conditions  were  felt  generally  by  the  steel  workers 
themselves  to  constitute  undue  grievances  obviously  in- 
u 


178     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

volves  the  opinion  of  nearly  five  hundred  thousand  such 
workers  which  opinion,  except  on  the  basis  of  a  specific  and 
fair  vote,  again  can  only  be  determined  by  the  weight  of  all 
evidence  available. 

Finally,  whether  or  not  the  proposed  remedy  for  these 
alleged  grievances — Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining — 
was  regarded  by  the  majority  of  the  steel  workers  themselves 
as  an  adequate  and  desirable  remedy  also  involves  the 
opinion  of  some  500,000  men.  Barring  the  possibility  of 
its  expression  through  a  specific  and  fair  vote,  these  opinions 
again  can  only  be  determined  by  the  weight  of  all  the  evi- 
dence available. 

The  drive  to  unionize  the  steel  industry  was  made  ex- 
pressly on  the  basis  that  the  steel  workers  themselves  did 
feel  the  alleged  grievances  to  be  real  and  desired  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  as  a  means  of  rectifying  such 
grievances.  The  strike  leaders  stated  in  advance  that  the 
strike  itself  would  constitute  a  vote  by  the  workers  them- 
selves as  to  their  attitude  toward  their  alleged  grievances 
and  the  proposed  remedy. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  if  other  conditions  had  been 
equal — if  the  response  to  the  unionization  drive  and  the 
strike  order  were  not  unduly  complicated  by  other  influences 
and  considerations — the  measure  of  that  response  con- 
stituted the  strongest  possible  prima  facie  evidence  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  men  themselves,  at  least  at  the  time  of 
the  strike,  regarded  the  alleged  grievances  as  real  and  the 
proposed  remedy  as  desirable. 

But  it  was  a  question  very  much  in  dispute  at  the  time 
as  to  how  big  a  proportion  of  the  workers  did  obey  the  strike 
order.  Moreover  it  is  strongly  iu*ged  by  the  steel  companies 
that  as  regards  the  strike  being  an  expression  of  a  feeling  of 
grievance,  even  on  the  part  of  the  majority  of  those  who 
struck,  other  things  were  not  equal — that  on  the  contrary 
the  strike,  even  to  the  extent  it  was  effective,  was  brought 
about  by  outside  professional  labor  leaders  who,  uninvited 
and  undesired  by  any  considerable  proportion  of  the  steel 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       179 

workers,  began  a  campaign  of  agitation,  including  radical 
agitation,  chiefly  among  the  unskilled  foreign  workers,  and 
by  appealing  to  their  ignorance  and  class  prejudices,  formed 
a  strike  nucleus,  and  then  by  skilful  manipulation  of  mass 
psychology,  coupled  with  intimidation,  succeeded  in  getting 
only  a  minority  of  the  workers  to  stop  work  and  that  even 
this  minority  rapidly  dwindled  as  soon  as  protection  against 
intimidation  was  assured. 

Nevertheless  the  response  of  the  steel  workers  to  the 
unionization  drive  and  the  strike  order — irrespective  of  the 
fact  that  it  may  have  been  far  from  a  free  expression  of 
opinion  on  the  specific  questions  involved  and  must  be 
qualified  accordingly — is  certainly  the  most  conspicuous 
evidence,  and  also  the  most  definite  comprehensive  evidence 
available  as  to  the  feeling  of  the  steel  workers  themselves 
in  regard  to  the  alleged  grievances  and  the  proposed  remedy. 

The  question  as  to  whether  or  not,  and  to  what  extent, 
the  unionization  drive  and  the  strike  represented  such  a 
free  expression  of  opinion  will  be  considered  in  the  two  fol- 
lowing chapters,  "Origin  of  the  Strike  Movement"  and 
"  Radicalism  in  the  Steel  Strike."  The  succeeding  chapter, 
"Response  of  the  Men  to  the  Unionization  Drive  and  the 
Strike  Appeal"  will  discuss,  with  any  reservations  which 
may  then  be  established,  what  the  unionization  drive  and 
the  strike  actually  showed  to  be  the  attitude  of  the  steel 
workers  themselves  as  to  their  alleged  grievances  and  as  to 
Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining  as  a  remedy. 


CHAPTER  XV 

ORIGIN   OF  THE   STRIKE  MOVEMENT 

In  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  strike  movement  the  Inter- 
church  Report  (page  144,  line  27)  says  merely  that: 

"The  labor  movement  initiated  the  organizing  campaign,  invited  by 
the  steel  workers  according  to  the  labor  leaders,  invading  where  it 
was  not  wanted  according  to  the  employers.  Both  statements  are 
correct  and  neither  lays  emphasis  on  the  principle  fact  .  .  .  these 
steel  workers  are  more  important  than  their  leaders,  etc. " 

The  whole  Interchurch  argument  and  its  conclusions  as 
to  the  reasons  for  the  strike  and  the  relation  of  the  steel 
workers  to  the  strike  are  based  on  two  assumptions  both 
contrary  to  fact  and  the  arguments  from  which  are  corre- 
spondingly fallacious.  It  is  necessary  therefore,  although 
the  Interchurch  Report  thus  evades  this  point,  to  establish 
as  part  of  the  evidence  of  those  fallacies  the  actual  facts  as 
to  who  originated  the  strike  movement  and  why. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  steel  strike  in  19 19  and  the  unioniza- 
tion drive  which  preceded  it,  there  had  been  no  strikes  and 
no  apparent  agitation  or  unrest  among  the  steel  workers 
since  19 10.  Except  for  a  small  abortive  agitation  and  strike 
which  lasted  only  a  few  weeks  and  in  a  few  plants  at  that 
time  there  had  been  no  strikes  or  visible  agitation  and  unrest 
since  1903.  In  other  words  before  the  1919  strike,  for  this 
remarkably  long  period, — considering  the  average  American 
conditions  of  labor  unrest, — of  sixteen  years,  the  steel  in- 
dustry had  enjoyed  apparently  peaceful  and  mutually 
satisfactory  relations  between  employer  and  workers. 

180 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       i8i 

During  the  years  1916-17-18  general  labor  unrest  and 
strikes  throughout  the  country  had  multiplied  till  they  had 
permeated  every  other  basic  industry  and  reached  in  the 
year  of  our  entry  into  the  war  the  unparalleled  figure  of 
4,324.^  Yet  during  these  years  of  particular  and  acute  gen- 
eral labor  unrest,  the  steel  industry,  which  had  voluntarily 
raised  wages  eight  different  times  during  this  period,  had 
been  conspicuously  free  from  labor  unrest.  No  suggestions 
of  labor  trouble  or  a  strike  had,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  the  steel  leaders,  been  discerned  by  the  watchful  interests 
of  the  steel  companies  themselves  and  certainly  no  sugges- 
tion of  labor  trouble  in  the  steel  industry  had  come  to  public 
attention  until  the  fall  of  19 18. 

For  a  great  many  years  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  had  been 
a  prominent  I.  W.  W.  official  and  organizer.  He  was  secre- 
tary of  the  Syndicalist  League  of  North  America  and  one 
of  the  American  delegates  to  their  international  convention 
at  Buda  Pesth  in  191 1  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  i ,  page  42 1 — 
last  paragraph,  page  422,  line  47,  etc.,  etc.). 

In  1 9 14,  however,  Mr.  Foster  announced  his  decision: 

"that  the  only  way  for  the  I.  W.  W.  to  have  the  workers  adopt  and 
practice  the  principles  of  revolutionary  unionism  is  to  give  up  the  at- 
tempt to  create  a  new  labor  movement  .  .  .  get  into  the  organized  labor 
movement  and  .  .  .  revolutionize  these  unions"  (Senate  Hearings, 
page  418). 

Two  years  after  the  announcement  of  this  conviction, 
Mr.  Foster  appears  as  an  international  organizer  of  the 
Brotherhood  of  Railroad  Carmen,  a  regular  trade  union 
organization.  The  next  year  he  presented  an  entirely  novel 
plan  to  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  for  the  unioniza- 
tion of  the  workers  of  the  Chicago  stockyards  and  in  co- 
operation with  the  A.  F.  of  L.  was  one  of  the  leaders  in  the 
strike  that  succeeded  in  unionizing  those  workers. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Mr.  Foster  originated  the  idea 

'  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Review,  June,  1920,  page 
204-1510. 


i82     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

and  the  plan  of  unionizing  the  steel  industry,  which  idea  and 
plan  he  himself  describes  in  his  own  book,  The  Great  Steel 
Strike,  beginning  page  17,  Hne  3,  as  follows : 

".  .  .  as  the  War  wore  on  and  the  United  States  joined  the  general 
slaughter,  the  situation  changed  rapidly  in  favor  of  the  unions.  The 
demand  for  soldiers  and  munitions  had  made  labor  scarce;  .  .  .  the 
steel  industry  was  the  master  clock  of  the  whole  war  program  and  had 
to  be  kept  in  operation  at  all  costs  ...  it  was  an  opportunity  to 
organize  the  industry  such  as  might  never  again  occur.  .  .  . 

"The  writer  was  one  of  those  who  perceived  the  unparalleled  oppor- 
timity.  But  being  at  that  time  secretary-treasurer  of  the  committee 
organizing  the  packing  industry,  I  was  unable  to  do  anything  substan- 
tial in  the  steel  situation.  .  .  .  Immediately  thereafter  (at  the  end 
of  the  packers'  strike)  I  presented  a  resolution  to  the  Chicago  Feder- 
ation of  Labor  requesting  the  executive  officers  of  the  American  Feder- 
ation of  Labor  to  call  a  general  labor  conference,  and  to  inaugurate 
thereat  a  national  campaign  to  organize  the  steel  workers. 

"It  was  intended, "  continues  Mr.  Foster  {Great  Steel  Strike,  page  21, 
lines  7-12)  "that  after  the  Chicago  conference  a  dozen  or  more  general 
organizers  should  be  dispatched  immediately  to  the  most  important  steel 
centers  to  bring  to  the  steel  workers  the  first  word  of  the  big  drive  being  made 
in  their  behalf." 

Mr.  Foster  states  incidentally  that  his  resolution  was 
"endorsed  by  twelve  local  unions  in  the  steel  industry," 
but  what  these  unions  were,  how  many  members  or  what 
part  of  the  industry  they  represented,  he  does  not  state. 

Moreover  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  strike  leaders 
themselves  later  claimed  repeatedly  that  such  local  unions 
as  existed  in  the  steel  industry  were  traitors  to  the  workers' 
cause  because  they  were  against  the  strike  and  Mr.  Foster 
himself  says  {Great  Steel  Strike,  page  106,  line  29) : 

"Much  harm  was  done  the  morale  of  the  strikers  by  local  tmions  .  .   . 
refusing  to  recognize  the  national  committee's  strike  call." 
He  also  says  (page  45,  Hne  24) : 
"Company  unions  are  invariably  contemptible." 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick  in  his  testimony  (Senate  Hearings,  Part 
I,  page  81)  also  bitterly  condemns  company  unions  as  oppos- 
ing the  strike. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       183 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  passed  a  special  Re- 
solution at  its  1 919  Convention  specifically  condemning 
local  steel  unions  and  one  of  the  twelve  official  demands 
made  by  the  strike  leaders  on  which  the  strike  was  called 
was  that  all  local  unions  should  be  abolished. 

Finally  these  twelve  unnamed  unions  could  not  have  been 
very  important  or  representative  or  it  would  not  have  been 
necessary  after  the  Chicago  conference  to  send  immediately 
men  to  the  "imporiant  steel  centers  to  bring  the  first  word 
.    .    .  of  the  big  drive  being  made  in  their  behalf'' 

On  June  loth  to  20th,  191 8,  ten  weeks  after  Mr.  Foster 
presented  his  plan,  Resolution  29,  authorizing  the  carrying 
out  of  Mr.  Foster's  plan,  was  "adopted  by  unanimous  vote" 
at  the  convention  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  at  St.  Paul. 

After  referring  to  Resolution  29  as  "merely  the  shell," 
Mr.  Foster  goes  on  to  describe  his  actual  plan  as  follows: 
(Great  Steel  Strike,  page  20) : 

"Its  breath  of  life  was  in  its  strat^y;  in  the  way  the  organization 
work  was  to  be  prosecuted  .  .  .  The  idea  was  to  make  a  hurricane 
drive  simultaneously  in  all  the  steel  centers  that  would  catch  the  workers' 
imagination  and  sweep  them  into  the  unions  en  masse  .  .  .  cooperating 
international  unions  were  to  recruit  numbers  of  organizers  and  to  send 
them  to  join  the  forces  already  being  developed  everywhere  by  the 
general  organizers  ...  at  least  $250,000  (was)  to  be  provided  for  the 
work. " 

This  sum  refers  only  to  the  initiation  of  the  whirlwind 
campaign.  As  a  matter  of  fact  $1,005,007.72  was  actually 
provided  (Finance  statement.  Great  Steel  Strike,  page  231). 

Moreover  Mr.  Foster  says  (page  236,  line  6) : 

"The  figures  cited  in  the  previous  chapter  as  covering  the  general  ex- 
penses, $1,005,007,  is  unusually  low.  .  .  .  The  United  Mine  Workers 
are  authoritatively  stated  to  have  spent  about  $5,000,000 .  . .  about  $400 
per  man  involved  ...  in  the  next  campaign  (next  steel  strike)  all  that 
must  be  different.  The  Unions  will  have  to  put  some  real  money  in  the 
fight.    Then  they  may  win  it. " 

Mr.  Foster  originated  the  plan  of  the  steel  strike.  He 
was  secretary-treasurer,  one  of  the  two  most  important 


i84     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

officers,  of  the  special  committee  that  managed  the  strike, 
and  the  above  account  of  how  the  steel  strike  was  originated 
and  carried  out  was  deliberately  given  in  a  generally  circu- 
lated volume  which  appeared  six  months  after  the  end  of  the  • 
strike. 

Moreover  Mr.  John  Fitzpatrick,  President  of  the  special 
committee  that  organized  and  managed  the  steel  strike 
gives,  though  in  less  detail,  an  exactly  parallel  account  of 
the  plan  and  the  motives  that  were  back  of  the  attempted 
unionization  of  the  steel  industry.  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  was  the 
first  witness  before  the  Senate  Committee.  His  statement 
was  carefully  prepared  and  committed  to  memory  as  is 
obvious  from  the  fact  that  when  interrupted  he  began 
again  to  repeat  word  for  word  what  he  had  previously  been 
saying.    He  says  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  8,  line  6): 

"The  labor  organizations,  realizing  what  tremendous  influence  the 
steel  industry  has  on  all  other  industries,  made  up  its  mind  that  it 
would  have  to  organize  the  steel  industry,  no  matter  at  what  cost. " 

As  to  the  origin  of  the  Steel  Strike  Movement,  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  again  testified  on  the  following  page: 

"Senator  Jones:  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  let  me  ask  you,  had  the  employees 
of  the  Steel  Corporation  made  application  to  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  for  their  organization  or  was  the  movement  initiated  by  the 
organization? 

"Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  The  A.  F.  of  L.  instituted  the  movement." 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick  does  say,  and  later,  realizing  the  meaning 
of  the  insistence  of  this  question  as  to  who  initiated  the 
movement,  Mr.  Gompers  emphasizes,  but  only  in  a  very 
vague  general  way,  what  he  had  previously  said  in  his  letter 
to  Judge  Gary  that ' '  upon  the  request  of  a  number  of  men  " 
in  the  employ  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  had  instituted  the  unionization  move- 
ment. There  is  no  possible  question,  however,  as  to  the 
whole  impression  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  had  and  gave  as  to  the 
initiation  of  the  steel  strike.     In  the  part  of  his  speech 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       185 

obviously  committed  to  memory  he  states  plainly  and  un- 
qualifiedly that  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  "initi- 
ated" the  unionization  drive  in  the  steel  industry  and  he 
constantly  comes  back  to  the  fact  that  it  was : 

"absolutely  imperative  that  the  steel  mills  be  organized,  because  it 
held  the  balance  of  the  labor  movement  back"  (Senate  Hearings,  page 
10,  line  2). 

"Our  position  was  to  protect  ourselves.  We  had  to  save  our  organi- 
zation, etc.,  etc. "  (Senate  Hearings,  page  27,  line  26). 

Mr.  Tighe,  President  of  the  Amalgamated  Iron,  Steel  and 
Tin  Workers  Union,  which  is  the  big  union  of  the  metal 
trades,  stated  definitely  that  one  of  the  causes  of  the  1910 
strike,  and  he  plainly  indicated  that  it  was  a  reason  that  still 
persisted,  was  that  many  other  metal  workers  in  his  union 
*'had  dropped  out  of  the  organization  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  we  were  not  taking  an  aggressive  initiative  attitude 
toward  the  (Steel)  Corporation." 

In  addition  to  these  plain  definite  statements  of  the  high- 
est officials  among  the  strike  leaders,  that  organized  labor 
and  not  the  steel  workers  initiated  the  unionization  drive  in 
the  steel  industry,  is  the  strong  circumstantial  evidence  of 
the  type  of  strategy  used  in  the  unionization  drive. 

All  the  facts  of  the  elaborate  plans  and  preparations  made 
to  unionize  the  steel  industry — the  number  of  organizers 
required — the  big  s\mis  of  money — indicate  of  course  that 
the  drive  expected  opposition  and  had  to  be  prepared  to 
overcome  that  opposition.  There  are  obviously  but  two 
possible  sources  of  such  opposition — the  hostility  or  in- 
difference of  the  steel  workers  themselves  or  the  hostility 
of  the  companies.  It  is  equally  obvious  that  in  proportion 
as  the  organizers  expected  the  opposition  to  be  the  indiffer- 
ence of  the  men,  one  type  of  organization  strategy  would  be 
employed,  and  in  proportion  as  they  expected  the  chief  op- 
position to  come  from  the  steel  companies  another  type  of 
strategy  would  be  employed. 

Now  it  is  entirely  obvious  that  the  steel  companies  could 


1 86     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

only  fight  the  unionization  movement  in  two  ways,  by  hin- 
dering or  persecuting  the  union  organizers  or  by  discharging 
the  men  who  joined  the  unions.  If  the  union  organizers 
expected  to  be  received  and  welcomed  by  the  men  and  only 
this  type  of  company  opposition  was  to  be  overcome,  it  is 
plain  that  the  best  way  to  conduct  such  an  organization 
campaign  would  be  to  hide  their  plans  as  much  as  possible 
from  the  steel  companies,  to  keep  their  workers  and  work  as 
inconspicuous  as  possible — to  meet  the  men  in  small  groups 
in  their  homes  or  otherwise  and  work  from  man  to  man. 
This  would  of  course  require  large  numbers  of  organizers 
and  considerable  money  and  time  but  the  organization 
committee  had  money  and  a  year's  time. 

It  is  equally  obvious  that  if  this  big  opposition,  which  was 
being  so  elaborately  prepared  against,  was  to  come  from  the 
hostility  or  indifference  of  the  men  themselves,  that  the  best 
strategy  to  overcome  such  hostility  or  indifference  was  to 
play  on  collective  mass  psychology  and  mass  enthusiasm  to 
get  the  movement  started  and  rush  the  men  off  their  feet. 

" The  idea, "  says  Mr.  Foster,  "was  to  make  a  htirricane  drive  simul- 
taneously in  all  the  steel  centers  that  would  catch  the  workers'  imagina- 
tions and  sweep  them  into  the  unions  en  masse.  .  .  .  Great  mass  meetings 
built  up  by  extensive  advertising  would  be  held  everywhere  at  the  same 
time  throughout  the  steel  industry  .  .  .  the  heavy  stream  of  men 
pouring  into  the  unions  would  be  turned  into  a  decisive  flood  by  the 
election  of  committees  to  formulate  the  grievances  of  the  men  and 
present  these  to  the  employers,  etc.,  etc. "  (Great  Steel  Strike,  page  21). 

Again  there  is  another  group  of  facts  which,  by  establish- 
ing clearly  a  strong  motive,  also  constitutes  at  least  strong 
circtmistantial  evidence  as  to  who  was  responsible  for  the 
attempted  unionization  of  the  steel  industry.  These  are 
the  definite  unquestioned  facts  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
labor  organizations  and  the  professional  "organizers"  would 
profit  from  the  successful  unionization  of  the  steel  industry. 

Out  of  the  $1,005,007.72  put  into  the  steel  strike — a  large 
part  of  this  put  in  by  the  labor  leaders  themselves  out  of  the 
treasuries   of   other   workers   they   "represented" — some 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       187 

$348,50942  was  put  into  the  commissariat  to  supply  food  to 
"the  small  impoverished  minority  of  the  workers"  who  did 
not  have  enough  money  saved  up  to  support  themselves  and 
their  families  the  three  months  they  did  not  work.  This 
leaves  a  balance  of  over  a  half  a  million  dollars  which  was 
spent  in  two  ways,  the  chief  of  which  was  in  paying  salaries 
to  the  principal,  and  a  host  of  lesser,  professional  labor  lead- 
ers, who  were  engaged  in  persuading  the  steel  workers  to 
accept  them  as  "representatives." 

In  the  next  strike  into  which  "real  money  must  be  put " — 
Mr,  Foster  mentions  a  minimum  of  $5,000,000 — there  will 
be  some  four  or  four  and  a  half  million  dollars  available — 
chiefly  for  paying  salaries  to  a  very  much  larger  host  of 
professional  labor  leaders. 

But  this  applies  only  to  the  unionization  or  strike  period. 
Governor  Allen  of  Kansas  in  his  speech  before  the  Harvard 
Union  in  April,  192 1,  stated  that  less  than  4,000,000  Ameri- 
can workers,  under  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  plan 
of  trade  union  collective  bargaining,  are  paying  $50,000,000 
a  year  into  the  hands  of  150,000  professional  labor  leaders 
who  "represent"  these  workers  in  their  collective  bargain- 
ing. If  the  steel  strike  had  succeeded  the  500,000  workers, 
at  an  average  of  50c  a  week  dues — these  are  the  dues  of  the 
United  Mine  Workers  and  are  exceptionally  low — would  be 
paying  $12,000,000  a  year  to  its  "representatives,"  a  small 
percentage  of  which  would  be  added  to  a  cumulative  strike 
benefit  fund,  a  certain  percentage  for  other  benefits,  but 
at  least  $7,000,000  to  $9,000,000  of  which  would  go  every 
year  to  pay  the  office  rent  and  salaries  of  about  20,000 
professional  labor  leaders  to  "represent "  these  steel  workers 
in  "collective  bargaining"  with  the  steel  companies. 

Moreover  as  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  particularly  emphasized 
the  unionization  of  the  "key"  steel  industry  would  make  it 
much  easier  to  unionize  other  industries,  which  other  indus- 
tries would  yield  correspondingly  similar  profits. 

As  regards  the  origin  of  the  campaign  to  "unionize"  the 
steel  workers  then  these  points  are  plain  as  matters  of  fully 


i88       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

established  fact.  The  steel  industry  had  for  years  enjoyed 
a  conspicuous  freedom  from  the  labor  troubles  that  had 
become  more  and  more  general.  During  a  period  in  which 
the  cost  of  living  had  gone  up  only  about  80%  steel  wages 
had  been  voluntarily  raised  among  the  different  classes  of 
workers  from  1 1 1  %  to  163%.  Relations  between  the  com- 
panies and  the  men  were  apparently  entirely  satisfactory. 
The  plan  to  attempt  to  unionize  the  steel  industry  was 
originated  among  professional  labor  leaders  entirely  un- 
connected with  the  industry.  It  is  alleged  that  after  the 
plan  had  thus  been  independently  developed  Mr.  Foster 
submitted  it  to  certain  individuals  or  minor  organizations 
in  the  industry  but  no  evidence  is  presented  or  suggested  as 
to  who  these  were  and  Mr.  Foster  does  not  pretend  that 
this  changes  the  fact,  and  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  definitely  states 
it  to  be  a  fact,  that  the  initiation  of  the  steel  unionization 
drive  was  entirely  with  the  A.  F.  of  L.  Moreover  the  whole 
scope  of  the  plan  of  unionization  as  described  by  Mr.  Foster, 
its  author — the  emphasis  that  was  placed  on  its  particular 
type  of  strategy — show  plainly  that  those  who  originated  it 
and  were  prepared  to  carry  it  through  expected  to  meet  the 
greatest  indifference  on  the  part  of  the  workers  themselves. 
Finally  the  immense  profits  in  jobs  and  income  and  influ- 
ence which  the  successful  unionization  of  such  a  great  in- 
dustry would  bring  to  the  professional  labor  leaders  who 
unionized  it,  establishes  an  entirely  adequate  motive  to 
explain  why  such  an  effort  should  be  made  to  seek  to  over- 
come this  anticipated  indifference  on  the  part  of  the  men 
themselves. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

RADICALISM   IN   THE   STEEL   STRIKE 

The  daily  press  at  the  time  particularly  emphasized  the 
influence  of  radicalism  in  the  steel  strike.  It  characterized 
Foster  as  the  "radical  leader  of  the  strike."  Many  of  the 
witnesses  for  the  steel  companies  before  the  Senate  In- 
vestigating committee  and  witnesses  and  evidence  presented 
by  the  government  emphasized  the  radical  influence  in  the 
strike.  Large  quantities  of  radical  literature  were  an- 
nounced as  having  been  found  in  various  strike  centers  and 
the  U.  S.  Department  of  Justice  arrested  a  number  of  men 
for  radical  agitation.  Because  of  these  facts  and  because  of 
the  widespread  feeling  as  to  the  development  of  radicalism 
after  the  war,  there  is  no  question  but  that  the  public 
thought  radicalism  a  large  factor  in  the  steel  strike. 

The  Interchurch  Report,  however,  flatly  denies  that  this 
was  true.    It  says  in  its  conclusions : 

"13.  Charges  of  Bolshevism  or  of  industrial  radicalism  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  strike  were  without  foundation."  (Interchurch  Report, 
page  15,  line  24). 

"Evidence  on  this  interpretation  of  the  strike  as  a  Bolshevist  plot 
failed  entirely  to  substantiate  it.  On  the  contrary  it  tended  to  show 
that  this  conception  was  without  foundation  in  fact"  (page  20,  line  17). 

The  Interchurch  Report  questions  Mr.  Gary's  sincerity 
in  charging  radicalism  in  the  steel  strike  (page  35,  line  10). 

The  Interchurch  Report  states  the  allegations  in  regard 
to  radicalism  in  the  strike  which  it  thus  concludes  are  with- 
out foundations  in  fact,  as  follows : 

189 


190     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"...  the  allegation  that  the  strike  was  plotted  and  led  by  Reds  or 
syndicalists  or  Bolshevists,  that  it  was  supported  mainly  or  entirely  by 
alien  radicals  and  that  its  real  objects  were  the  overthrow  of  established 
leaders  and  established  institutions  of  organized  labor  and  perhaps  the 
overthrow  of  the  established  government  of  the  country"  (page 21, 
line  18). 

This  is  undoubtedly  not  a  fair  or  accurate  statement  of 
the  charges  made  or  the  feelings  held  in  regard  to  radicalism 
in  the  strike.  These  did  not  insist  that  the  radicals  involved 
were  "alien"  except  in  their  point  of  view.  The  most  con- 
spicuous leaders  accused  of  radicalism  were  in  fact  known  to 
be  American  citizens.  Moreover  it  was  probably  never 
seriously  felt,  that  the  "direct  objects"  of  the  strike  were 
the  overthrow  of  established  organized  labor  or  of  the  es- 
tablished government  of  the  country.  All  that  was  felt  or 
seriously  alleged  was  that  the  strike  was  conducted  by  men 
who  had  that  general  object  and  who  meant  to  use  the  strike 
as  far  as  possible  as  a  step  in  that  direction. 

This  statement  by  the  Interchurch  Report  of  the  allega- 
tions of  radicalism  are  so  precise  and  definite,  however, 
that  it  offers  perhaps  the  most  simple  outline  on  which  to 
analyze  the  question  of  radicalism  in  the  strike. 

The  first  allegation  as  stated  and  denied  by  the  Inter- 
church Report  is : 

"The  strike  was  plotted  and  led  by  Reds  or  syndicalists  or 
Bolshevists." 

The  idea  and  the  plan  and  the  strategy  of  the  steel  strike 
were  originated  by  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  personally. 

Mr.  Foster  states  this  fact  specifically  and  with  details 
as  to  steps  of  procedure,  in  his  book  The  Great  Steel  Strike, 
page  27,  which  has  already  been  quoted  extensively.  This 
fact  was  also  alleged  frequently  during  the  strike  and  was 
never  publicly  officially  denied  by  labor  leaders  and  as  far 
as  is  known  never  denied  at  all.  The  Interchurch  Report 
itself  states  (page  157,  line  i) : 

"He  (Foster)  saw  the  stockyards  unorganized,  the  steel  industry 
unorganized.     Instead  of  merely  trying  to  sting  the  A.  F.  of  L.  into 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       191 

moving  ...  he  thotight  out  a  plan  of  action  .  .  .  He  took  the  plan  to  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  who  saw  its  possibilities,  the  A.  F.  of  L.  indorsed  it,  etc. " 

Moreover  the  Interchurch  Report  constantly  features 
Foster  as  the  conspicuous  moving  spirit  of  the  steel  strike. 

There  is  no  question  that  Mr.  Foster  had  been  a  pro- 
nounced and  extreme  radical.  He  had  been  secretary  of  the 
Syndicalist  League  of  North  America — had  been  a  conspicu- 
ous leader  of  the  I.  W.  W. — had  been  the  official  delegate 
from  these  organizations  to  the  world  famous  radical  con- 
vention in  Buda  Pesth.  Through  a  period  of  years  he  had 
not  only  written  a  widely  circulated  book  on  radicalism  but 
had  been  a  constant  contributor  to  ultra  radical  magazines. 
In  these  various  writings  he  had  said : 

"The  wages  system  is  the  most  brazen  and  gigantic  robbery  ever 
perpetrated  .  .  .  the  thieves  at  present  in  control  of  the  industries 
must  be  stripped  of  their  booty  .  .  .  this  social  reorganization  will  be 
a  revolution.  .  .  .  For  years  progressive  workers  have  realized  the 
necessity  for  this  revolution.  They  have  also  realized  that  it  must 
be  brought  about  by  .  .  .  themselves  .  .  .  the  Syndicalist  .  .  .  con- 
siders the  state  a  meddling  capitalist  institution.  .  .  .  He  is  a  radical 
opponent  of  '  law  and  order '  as  he  knows  that  for  his  imions  to  be  legal 
in  their  tactics  would  be  for  them  to  become  impotent.  .  .  .  With  him 
the  end  justifies  the  means.  Whether  his  tactics  be  legal  and  moral  or 
not  does  not  concern  him  so  long  as  they  are  effective.  .  .  .  He  pro- 
poses to  develop,  regardless  of  capitalist's  conceptions  of  legality,  fair- 
ness, right,  etc.,  a  greater  power  than  his  capitalist  enemies  have  .  .  . 
He  proposes  to  bring  about  the  revolution  by  the  general  strike.  .  .  . 
Besides  its  program  of  incessant  skirmishes  (ordinary  strikes)  the  trade 
union  is  engaged  in  the  work  of  integral  emancipation  ...  Its  fun- 
damental task  is  to  take  possession  of  the  social  wealth  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  bourgeois  class  and  to  reorganize  society  on  a  communist  basis. 
.  .  .  Every  great  strike  is  accompanied  by  violence  .  .  .  but  the  pro- 
spect of  bloodshed  does  not  frighten  the  syndicalist  worker  ...  he  has 
no  sentimental  regard  for  what  may  happen  to  his  enemies  during  the 
general  strike."  Excerpts  Senate  Hearings,  page  387,  394,  392,  417,  418. 

These  writings  were  all  shown  by  the  Senate  Investigat- 
ing Committee  to  Mr.  Foster  and  were  acknowledged  by 
him  as  his  own. 

Such  was  the  man  who  conceived  and  planned  the  Steel 


192     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Strike.  Moreover  Mr.  Foster  was  one  of  the  two  principal 
officers  of  the  committee  who  organized  the  strike.  His 
name  was  one  of  the  five  signed  to  the  letter  asking  the 
conference  with  Judge  Gary  which  conference  was  to  put  the 
steel  industry  on  a  trade  union  collective  bargaining  basis 
with  Mr.  Foster  as  one  of  the  official  bargainers.  These 
are  all  matters  of  printed  record. 

Moreover,  Mr.  Foster  not  only  personally  conceived  and 
developed  the  plan  of  the  steel  strike  and  was  one  of  the 
two  highest  official  leaders  in  organizing  and  conducting  the 
strike  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  ability  and  per- 
sonality made  him  the  dominant  factor  on  the  labor  side. 

Of  the  labor  leaders  who  appeared  before  the  Senate 
Committee  one  was  obviously  a  strong,  sincere,  stubborn 
fighter  but  with  a  mind  palpably  slow  and  awkward.  When 
he  got  away  from  his  set  speech  or  from  questions  that  could 
be  answered  by  stock  phraseology,  he  floundered,  made 
ridiculous  statements  and  contradicted  himself  to  an  extent 
that  was  only  saved  from  being  humorous  by  his  obvious 
sincerity.  Some  of  the  other  labor  leaders  that  appeared 
before  the  Senate  Committee  showed  skill  in  parrying  and 
thrusting  with  verbal  phrases,  appeared  adroit,  experienced 
manipulators  and  negotiators  but  were  patently  opportun- 
ists and  fundamentally  "soft." 

Mr.  Foster  stood  out.  He  was  a  dynamic  force.  He 
showed  quick,  keen  insight  and  sure  power  of  mind  and 
tongue.  No  one  can  read  the  whole  of  the  Senate  testimony 
and  particularly  Mr.  Foster's  testimony,  which  for  over  an 
hour  constituted  a  battle  of  wits  between  Mr.  Foster  and  the 
five  experienced  cross-examiners  who  made  up  the  Senate 
Committee,  and  not  realize  that  with  his  particular  ability 
and  his  official  position,  Mr.  Foster  must  inevitably  have 
been  the  dominant  factor  among  the  strike  leaders. 

The  men  at  the  head  of  the  steel  companies  and  the  men 
at  the  head  of  our  public  press  are  presumably  familiar 
with  the  general  workings  of  committee  management — 
including  the  disproportionate  influence  of  any  dominant 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       193 

personality  in  that  management, — and  also  at  least  aver- 
age judges  of  human  nature.  Both  the  steel  men  and  the 
newspaper  men  undoubtedly  knew  well  before  the  strike 
the  notorious  history  of  Mr.  Foster  including  his  beliefs 
and  points  of  view.  They  knew  that  he  originated  and 
planned  the  unionization  drive  of  the  steel  industry  and  of 
course  knew  his  official  position  on  the  managing  committee 
and  the  committee  that  sought  to  make  itself  the  instru- 
ment of  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry.  They 
undoubtedly  also  knew,  what  the  Interchurch  Report  ad- 
mits, that  radicals  were  actively  agitating  among  the  steel 
workers.  They  undoubtedly  knew  also,  what  the  Inter- 
church and  Mr.  Foster  freely  admit — that  the  unionization 
work  was  being  most  conspicuously  carried  on  among  the 
foreigners  who  were  most  inclined  and  most  susceptible  to 
radicalism. 

On  the  basis  of  these  outstanding  facts,  all  known  before 
the  strike,  there  can  be  no  question,  not  only  that  the  steel 
officials  who  were  asked  to  turn  over  a  considerable  part  of 
the  management  of  their  industry  to  a  collective  bargaining 
arrangement  with  such  a  committee,  but  the  leaders  of  the 
press,  were  justified  in  believing  and  charging  that  the 
"strike  was  plotted  and  led  by  reds  and  syndicalists  or 
bolshevists."  Moreover  that  they  were  entirely  right  about 
this  was  freely  admitted  by  Mr.  Foster  as  soon  as  the  steel 
strike  was  over,  and  is  also  admitted  (as  will  be  emphasized 
later)  in  the  later  and  more  obscure  sections  of  the  Inter- 
church Report. 

All  this  evidence  as  to  the  extreme  radicalism  of  the 
man  who  was  one  of  the  two  most  officially  prominent, 
and  who  in  the  public  mind  was  the  most  conspicuous 
of  the  strike  leaders,  was  so  widely  published  at  the  time 
and  radicalism  became  such  a  prominent  factor  in  the  strike 
situation  that  the  strike  leaders  made  a  special  effort,  par- 
ticularly before  the  Senate  Committee,  to  offset  this  im- 
pression. This  effort  was  made  along  two  lines:  first,  to 
show  that  Mr.  Foster  had  given  up  his  radicalism;  and 
13 


194     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

second,  to  show  that  Mr.  Foster  was  not  really  an  important 
factor  in  the  strike  management. 

In  the  Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  77,  Mr.  Fitzpatrick 
testified  in  regard  to  Mr.  Foster  and  his  radical  views : 

"  They  are  things  that  are  past  and  gone  .  .  .  they  have  not  got  any- 
thing on  Foster  except  something  that  has  been  dead  and  buried  so  long 
that  it  has  no  more  use  .  .  .  absolutely  they  are  not  his  present  views. 
,  .  .  (He  is)  absolutely  confining  himself  to  the  activities  and  scope 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor." 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Foster's  alleged  change  of  attitude  Mr. 
Gompers  testified  as  follows : 

"  Chairman:  You  say  then,  do  you,  Mr.  Gompers,  that  his  (Foster's) 
views  expressed  by  him  in  his  book  on  Syndicalism  and  his  views  ex- 
pressed at  the  time  you  speak  of  have  changed? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  I  have  no  doubt  and  I  have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  so, 
sir. " '    (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I ,  page  1 1 2 ,  line  26. ) 

Mr.  Foster  himself  was  cross-examined  at  great  length 
by  the  Senate  Committee  as  to  whether  or  not  he  still 
held  his  old  syndicalist  views.  His  first  line  of  defense 
was  to  assert  that  his  personal  views  were  not  material 
as  he  was  working  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
This  point  of  view  the  Senators  refused  to  accept  and 
they  presented  to  him  extensive  excerpts  from  a  volimie 
and  pamphlets  and  letters  which  he  was  alleged  to  have 
previously  written,  each  of  which  Mr.  Foster  acknowl- 
edged as  his  own  writing  and  his  own  views  at  the  time  they 
were  written.     In  each  of  these  cases  he  was  particularly 

'  "Foster  is  just  back  from  Russia  where  he  was  in  touch  with  Lenin 
and  Trotzky.  Judging  from  his  own  statements  no  man  visiting  the 
Soviet  was  ever  treated  better.  .  .  .  Immediately  upon  his  return  to 
the  United  States  he  proceeds  to  organize  the  Trade  Union  Educational 
League.  Presumably  Foster  is  the  educator  .  .  .  Back  of  that  resolu- 
tion (Foster's)  is  the  propaganda  of  radical  revolution  to  overthrow 
the  Ganstitution  of  the  United  States  .  .  .  and  William  Z.  Foster 
wants  to  become  an  autocrat  of  America." 

Samuel  Gompers, 

April  30,  1922. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       195 

pressed  to  state  whether  or  not  he  held  the  same  opinions 
at  the  time  of  the  strike.  Mr.  Foster  evaded  direct  answer 
to  such  questions  with  great  cleverness  by  giving  such  an- 
swers as  "Well,  I  have  my  own  ideas  about  the  functions  of 
government  of  course:"  "That  does  not  seem  to  be  a  very 
startling  proposition  nowadays :"  "  No.  I  would  not  state 
it  that  way  now."  "I  do  not  think  I  would  state  it  in  ex- 
actly the  same  terms  but  I  believe  the  men  in  the  industries 
as  far  as  possible  should  be  given  a  right  to  operate  those 
industries."  "  I  wouldn't  go  that  far  probably,"  and  other- 
wise skillfully  evaded  being  cornered  into  saying  specifically 
that  his  convictions  had  changed  from  his  former  extreme 
radicalism  to  any  material  degree. 

Thus  the  much  heralded  "repudiation"  of  Mr.  Foster's 
past  radical  views  consisted  merely  of  a  repudiation  of 
them  for  him  by  his  fellow  leaders  in  organized  labor. 

The  Liberator,  the  leading  organ  of  the  Syndicalist  Party 
said  at  this  time  (issue  of  Dec,  191 9)  of  Mr.  Foster: 

"  The  intellectual  honesty  which  distinguishes  his  type  prevented  him 
when  on  the  stand  at  Washington  from  even  pretending  to  disavow  his 
motives.  And  though  his  present  tactics  enjoin  a  discreet  silence  about 
those  motives,  they  are  an  open  secret.  He  is  in  the  A.  F.  of  L.  to  assist 
that  organization  in  its  transformation  into  a  modern  labor  organiza- 
tion." 

The  second  argtmient  by  which  the  strike  leaders  sought 
to  overcome  the  charge  of  radicalism  in  the  steel  strike  on 
account  of  Mr.  Foster's  radical  views,  was  by  emphasizing 
Mr.  Foster's  unimportance  in  the  unionizing  and  strike 
management. 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick  dwelt  at  length  in  his  testimony  on  the 
fact  that  the  strike  was  called  and  was  entirely  managed 
by  twenty-four  International  Unions  and  avoided  any  men- 
tion of  Mr.  Foster's  connection  with  the  strike  until  specifi- 
cally asked,  and  then  insisted  that  Foster  was  absolutely 
confining  himself  to  the  "activities  and  scope  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor." 

Mr.  Gompers  after  carefully  describing  the  strike  as  an 


196     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

effort  of  twenty-four  International  Unions  went  out  of  his 
way  to  insist : 

"Mr.  Foster  is  not  an  executive  officer;  he  is  not  a  member  of  that 
body.  He  has  been  chosen  by  them  as  secretary  to  perform  the  secre- 
tarial work."    (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  112,  line  34.) 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Foster  had  just  previously 
planned  and  successfully  led  the  stockyards'  strike — one 
of  the  greatest  victories  organized  labor  had  achieved  in 
a  good  many  years — that  he  had  originated  and  set  in  mo- 
tion the  whole  steel  organization  plan,  and  that  the  carrying 
out  of  that  whole  plan  had  been  deferred  till  he  was  person- 
ally free  to  put  his  energy  into  it — that  in  all  labor's  own 
official  documents  in  connection  with  the  strike  Mr.  Foster 
is  referred  to,  and  deferred  to,  far  more  frequently  than  any 
other  labor  leader — and  particularly  in  view  of  the  compara- 
tive quality  of  mental  strength  and  energy  which  all  the 
evidence  shows  Mr.  Foster  to  possess,  this  statement  of 
Mr.  Gompers,  volunteered  under  the  circiunstances,  can 
hardly  evoke  more  than  a  smile. 

The  Interchurch  Report  while  it  states  the  same  conclu- 
sion as  that  of  the  strike  leaders,  namely  that  radicalism  was 
not  a  factor  in  the  strike,  reaches  this  conclusion  by  quite 
another  course  of  reasoning,  to  which  particular  attention 
is  called. 

Instead  of  denying  Mr.  Foster's  importance  in  the  strike 
the  Interchurch  Report  insists  (page  35,  line  7)  Mr.  Foster 
was  a ' '  causative  factor  in  the  strike. "  It  speaks  of  the  whole 
organizing  strike  movement  as  "the  Foster  machine"  (page 
153,  line  21).  It  calls  him  the  "large  scale  promoter"  of  the 
unionizing  movement  (page  157,  line  14);  as  "Inactive 
charge  of  the  organization  drive"  (page  169,  line  32),  and 
toward  the  end  of  the  book,  devotes  ten  continuous  pages 
chiefly  to  Mr.  Foster's  importance  in  the  steel  strike  and 
otherwise  frankly  recognizes  him  as  the  dominant  factor  on 
the  labor  side. 

Moreover  the  Interchurch  Report  carefully  avoids  not 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       197 

only  any  admission  but  any  direct  discussion  of  Mr.  Foster's 
alleged  "repudiation  of  radicalism"  by  attacking  this 
question  offensively  instead  of  defensively.  It  accuses  the 
steel  companies  of  having  "dug  up"  Mr.  Foster's  syndical- 
ist book  and  his  voluminous  writings  on  radicalism  and  of 
having  borne  the  expense  of  reprinting  these  documents  and 
supplying  them  to  the  newspapers.  In  other  words  instead 
of  arguing  the  question  on  its  merits  as  to  whether  Mr. 
Foster,  who  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  features  as  the 
"large  scale  promoter"  of  the  strike,  was  an  ultra  radical, 
an  I.  W.  W.  and  a  syndicalist  or  not,  it  attempts  to  evade 
and  cover  up  these  questions  with  a  counter  charge  which  it 
concludes  merely  with  the  counter  question: 

"...  the  question  was  Mr.  Foster  really  sincere  in  recanting 
syndicalism  inevitably  raises  the  other  question,  was  Mr.  Gary  really 
sincere  in  charging  Bolshevism?  It  seemed  best  to  leave  such  analysis 
to  speculative  psychologists." 

After  thus  side-stepping  the  first  point  at  issue  as  to  radi- 
calism in  the  steel  strike,  the  Interchurch  Report  seeks  to 
justify  its  conclusion  that  radicalism  was  not  a  factor  in  the 
strike  by  the  other  argument  used  by  the  strike  leaders 
themselves,  namely:  that  Mr.  Foster,  irrespective  of  his 
personal  views,  was,  as  far  as  the  steel  strike  was  concerned, 
working  entirely  along  standard  trade  union  lines. 

Whatever  weight,  however,  might  otherwise  be  given  to 
this  argument,  which  both  the  strike  leaders  and  the  Inter- 
church Report  strive  so  hard  to  maintain,  is  entirely  over- 
balanced by  two  further  groups  of  evidence,  the  first  con- 
sisting ol  Mr.  Foster's  own  account  of  the  history  and  aims 
of  the  steel  strike  as  stated  in  his  book  the  Great  Steel 
Strike  and  second,  the  last  two  chapters  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  in  which,  in  a  lengthy  technical  discussion  of 
the  relation  of  the  steel  strike  to  the  labor  movement,  the 
Interchurch  Report  entirely  contradicts  its  conclusions  in 
the  front  of  the  book  and  entirely  bears  out  Mr.  Foster's 
own  evidence  that  the  steel  strike  was  not  only  plotted  by 


198     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

an  alien-minded  radical,  but,  at  least  as  far  as  Foster's 
faction  in  the  leadership  was  concerned,  was  a  deliberate 
attempt  on  an  immense  scale  to  further  substantially  the 
same  type  of  radical  aims  as  those  Foster  had  expressed  in 
his  book  on  syndicalism  and  which  aims,  the  Interchurch 
Report  states,  the  whole  American  Federation  of  Labor 
were  "in  1919  forced  automatically  into  considering." 

Rousseau  pointed  out  over  a  century  ago  that  the  minor- 
ity laboring  class,  if  it  were  organized  as  a  unit,  could,  with- 
out any  positive  action,  but  merely  by  stopping  work  and 
doing  nothing,  exert  a  more  powerful  pressure  on  all  society 
than  could  be  exerted  by  all  the  rest  of  society  in  spite  of  its 
numerical  superiority  or  any  superior  ability  or  leadership. 
Concretely,  if  it  could  be  organized  and  persuaded  to  do  so, 
coal  labor  or  railroad  labor  or  steel  labor  or  the  labor  of  any 
other  basic  industry  could,  by  merely  slowing  up  work,  de- 
crease production  and  raise  prices  to  the  whole  country — 
or  by  stopping  work  and  shutting  off  the  nation's  supply  of 
coal  or  steel  or  railroad  service  or  some  other  vital  national 
necessity,  bring  more  pressure  on  modern  society  to  enforce 
its  own  interests  irrespective  of  general  social  interests 
than  can  be  exerted  in  any  other  way  by  any  other  class  or 
by  all  other  classes.  Moreover  society  is  particularly  help- 
less against  any  such  united  action  on  the  part  of  all  the 
workers  of  any  industry  for  it  can  find  no  adequate  sub- 
stitute for  the  labor  of  a  whole  industry.  Even  if  it  sought 
to  make  such  action  by  the  labor  of  a  whole  industry  unlaw- 
ful, which  it  at  present  is  not,  it  is  futile  to  attempt  to  fine  a 
largely  propertyless  class,  and  radical  leaders  have  more 
than  once  dared  a  government  to  try  to  put  all  the  workers 
of  a  great  industry  in  jail. 

These  particular  facts  and  conditions  in  modern  industry 
have  been  seized  on  by  radicalism  as  the  basis  of  its  organiza- 
tion because  in  them  radicalism  sees  its  one  hope  of  realizing 
its  aims. 

The  "general  strike"  which  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  con- 
tinually refers  to  in  passages  already  quoted  and  elsewhere, 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       199 

as  the  method  by  which  syndicalism,  I.  W.  W.ism,  etc., 
proposed  to  bring  about  the  seizure  of  industry,  is  necessar- 
ily based  on  the  organization  of  all  the  workers  in  an  industry 
and  their  control  as  a  unit. 
Mr.  George  Soule  says  in  his  "New  Unionism,"  page  191 ; 

"An  analysis  of  the  strategy  of  the  (new)  unionism  will  discover  in 
it  two  fundamental  objectives  to  which  all  other  policies  are  subor- 
dinated. The  first  is  to  organize  all  the  workers  in  the  industry;  the 
second  is  to  develop  them  .  .  .  into  a  class-conscious  army  able  and 
ready  to  assume  control  of  industry. " 

This  radical  plan  of  labor  organization  is  called  "radical 
unionism,"  "revolutionary  unionism"  or  "industrial  union- 
ism," all  meaning  the  same  thing  and  is  also  spoken  of  as 
the  One  Big  Union  Idea.  This  is  the  form  of  labor  organiza- 
tion on  which  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers,  the 
I.  W.  W.  and  the  W.  1. 1.  U.  are  all  built,  and  on  which  syndi- 
calism, Bolshevism  and  all  other  kinds  of  radicalism  insist. 

The  ordinary  form  of  trade  union  is  organized  craft  by 
craft  instead  of  industry  by  industry  because  the  craft  union 
contributes  best  to  the  purposes  of  ordinary  trade  unionism. 
The  industrial  union  on  the  other  hand,  and  every  step  to- 
ward industrial  unionism  is  distinctly  a  step  toward  radical- 
ism because  the  industrial  form  of  organization  is  incompat- 
ible with  the  objects  of  ordinary  trade  unionism  and  inher- 
ently works  toward  radical  ends. 

As  a  result  therefore,  there  has  been  for  years  a  constant 
conflict  between  the  advocates  of  craft  unionism  and  of 
industrial  unionism. 

When  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  left  the  I.  W.  W.  and  joined 
the  A.  F.  of  L.  under  whose  auspices  he  conducted  the  steel 
strike,  he  definitely  stated  in  his  letter  of  October  4,  19 14, 
to  his  fellow  radicals  his  purposes  in  doing  so.    He  said  : 

"I  am  satisfied  from  my  observation  that  the  only  way  for  the 
I.  W.  W.  to  have  the  workers  adopt  and  practice  the  principles  of  revolu- 
tionary (industrial)  unionism  is  to  give  up  the  attempt  to  create  a  new 


200     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

labor  movement  .  .  .  get  into  the  organized  labor  movement  and  by 
building  up  better  fighting  machines  within  the  old  unions,  .  .  .  revolu- 
tionize these  unions. 

"  Yours  for  revolution, 

"William  Z.  Foster." 


As  soon  as  he  became  a  member  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  Mr. 
Foster  at  once  began  putting  "a  more  effective  fighting 
machine"  into  operation  with  conspicuous  success  in  the 
stockyards  strike  and  at  least  with  great  energy  and  deter- 
mination in  the  steel  strike.  These  two  facts  as  well  as  his 
announcement  that  he  intended  to  build  up  in  the  A.  F.  of 
L.  a  radical  fighting  machine,  make  it  particularly  pertinent 
to  examine  the  type  of  machine  which  Mr.  Foster  tried  to 
build  up,  and  to  a  certain  extent  did  build  up,  in  the  steel 
strike. 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Foster's  plan  and  organization  in  the 
steel  strike  the  Interchurch  Report  says  (page  157,  line  i): 

"He  saw  the  stockyards  unorganized,  the  steel  industry  unor- 
ganized. ...  He  thought  out  a  plan  of  action  which  was  to  get  all 
the  unions  having  'claims'  on  stockyard  trades,  to  unite  in  one  on- 
slaught .  .  .  and  they  led  the  united  unions  triumphantly  through  the 
stockyards.    Then  they  turned  to  steel." 

In  the  next  paragraph,  the  Interchurch  Report  speaks 
of  the  proposition  of  consolidating  the  efforts  of  a  score  of 
unions  to  control  a  whole  industry  as  "a  prospectus  of 
trust  magnitude"  of  which  Mr.  Foster  was  the  "large  scale 
promoter,"  which  prospectus  of  trust  magnitude  was  man- 
aged as  a  unit  by  a  single  small  strike  committee  of  which 
Mr.  Foster  was  the  prominent  member  and  which  committee 
the  Interchurch  Report  speaks  of  as  at  least  a  "specious 
industrial  effort." 

Moreover  that  the  existence  and  functioning  of  this 
committee  definitely  worked  toward  industrial  unionism  is 
later  specifically  stated  by  the  Interchurch  Report  when  it 
says  on  page  176,  line  11 : 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       201 

"The  committee  attempted  to  carry  the  temporary  and  artificial 
unity  of  the  24  Internationals  into  permanent  organization  in  two 
directions.  One  was  in  setting  up  District  Steel  Councils,  designed  to 
maintain  united  or  quasi-industrial  action  in  dealing  with  separate 
plants.  .  .  .  The  other  Committee  effort  specifically  authorized  by 
the  May  25  congress  was  towards  setting  up  a  national  cotmcil  or  Iron 
and  Steel  Department  within  the  A.  F.  of  L. " 

Thus  the  whole  plan  of  the  unionization  of  the  steel  in- 
dustry involved  a  unionizing  effort  which  was  contrary  to  all 
former  trade  union  practises  and  conspicuously  suspicious 
of  industrial  unionism.  That  the  whole  tendency  of  the 
movement  was  suspiciously  in  that  direction  was  emphasized 
by  Mr.  Gompers'  warning  that  his  "Endorsement  (of  the 
plan)  in  no  way  meant  any  personal  leaning  toward  the 
One  Big  Union  idea." 

Moreover,  in  regard  to  the  operation  of  the  plan  in  certain 
particulars,  Mr.  Foster  says, 

"This  splendid  solidarity  and  rapid  modification  of  trade  union  tactics 
and  institutions  to  meet  an  emergency  is  probably  without  a  parallel  in 
American  labor  annals. "    {Great  Steel  Strike,  page  214,  line  17.) 

and  he  otherwise  emphasizes  the  revolutionary  significance 
of  the  steel  campaign  in  trade  union  practise,  the  revolution- 
ary significance  being  all  in  the  direction  of  revolutionary 
industrial  unionism. 

In  other  words,  the  unionization  drive  in  the  steel  indus- 
try while  it  did  not  nominally  and  perhaps  not  technically 
attempt  to  organize  industrial  unionism  in  that  industry  in 
that  it  recognized  the  rights  and  turned  over  a  certain  per- 
centage of  the  members  secured  to  craft  unions,  did  con- 
template and  largely  achieve  such  a  coordination  of  present 
unions  with  a  single  small  organization  in  charge  of  union- 
izing and  strike  work,  that  it  was  in  its  operation  and  effect 
equivalent  to  the  radical  One  Big  Union  plan.  Finally  and 
most  important  of  all  it  had  the  same  effect  as  the  One  Big 
Union  idea  in  that  it  attempted  to  tie  up  a  whole  industry 


202     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

irrespective  of  whether  large  classes  of  the  workers  had 
grievances  or  not. 

Again  the  strike  leaders'  report  in  regard  to  the  number 
of  steel  workers  "organized"  and  the  way  they  were  ap- 
portioned to  the  different  craft  unions  is  very  significant 
in  this  connection.  This  report  which  is  reproduced  in  both 
the  Interchurch  Report  and  the  Great  Steel  Strike  show  that 
according  to  the  strike  leaders'  own  figures,  40%  of  all  the 
steel  workers  enrolled  were  not  thus  turned  over  to  the  craft 
unions.  How  this  40%  which  were  not  turned  over  to  craft 
unions  would  have  been  organized  if  the  steel  strike  had 
succeeded  and  the  union  organization  had  become  permanent 
can  only  be  surmised,  but  the  40%  which  were  not  turned 
over  to  craft  unions  would  certainly  have  made  a  very  effec- 
tive nucleus  for  an  industrial  union  in  the  steel  industry. 

Finally  the  Interchurch  Report  specifically  admits  (page 
160,  paragraph  2)  that: 

"In  many  plants  the  instinct  of  the  immigrant  recruit  was  to  associate 
with  his  shopmates  of  different  crafts  rather  than  with  his  craft  mates 
from  other  shops.  He  fell  more  easily  into  a  shop  or  plant  union  which 
however  would  have  been  an  industrial  union.  Some  local  leaders  so 
organized  him.  Thus  an  internal  conflict  arose  .  .  .  the  artificial 
harmony  of  the  24  International  Unions  conflicted  with  the  inexperienced 
immigrant  drift  (?)  toward  real  industrial  unionism." 

If,  in  view  of  this  array  of  facts,  Mr.  Foster  who  had  come 
into  the  A.  F.  of  L.  for  the  express  purpose  of  working  to 
turn  it  into  a  radical  or  industrial  union  organization,  had 
been  able  successfully  to  carry  out  his  plan  by  winning  the 
steel  strike,  it  seems  impossible  to  doubt  that  such  a  success 
following  such  a  success  as  the  stockyards  unionization 
would  have  been  regarded  as  so  great  a  strategic  triumph 
for  the  radical  influences  within  the  A.  F.  of  L.  that  it  would 
have  constituted  a  most  important  advance  for  all  radical 
influence  in  American  industry.  That,  irrespective  of  its 
defeat,  Mr.  Foster  himself  regarded  the  steel  strike  as  a 
marked  victory  for  radical  unionism,  is  not  only  clearly 
indicated  by  a  careful  reading  of  his  whole  book,  the  Great 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       203 

Steel  Strike  but  is  specially  emphasized  in  the  last  chapter 
which  is  devoted  to  showing  that  the  steel  strike  marked  a 
great  advance  in  trade  union  methods  and  practises  which 
advance  he  describes  as  follows : 

"For  many  years  radicals  in  this  country  have  .  .  .  maintained  that 
the  trade  unions  are  fundamentally  non-revolutionary.  ...  If  they 
were  to  look  sharply  they  would  see  that  the  trade  union  movement  is 
traveling  faster  than  any  other  body  toward  the  end  they  wish  to 
reach.  .  .  .  Like  various  other  social  movements  (trade  unions)  have 
more  or  less  instinctively  surrounded  themselves  with  a  sort  of  camou- 
flage or  protective  colouring  designed  to  disguise  the  movement  and  thus 
to  pacify  and  disarm  the  opposition.  Thi.=;  is  the  function  of  such  ex- 
pressions as  'a  fair  day's  pay  for  a  fair  day's  work' —  'the  interests  of 
capital  and  labor  are  identical,'  etc.  In  actual  practice  little  or  no  atten- 
tion is  paid  to  them.  They  are  for  foreign  (public)  consvunption.  .  .  . 
It  is  an  indisputable  fact  that  the  trade  unions  always  act  upon  the 
policy  of  taking  all  they  can  get.  .  .  .  They  are  as  insatiable  as  the 
veriest  so-called  revolutionary  unions.  ...  In  every  country  they 
are  constantly  .  .  .  solidifying  their  ranks,  building  ever  more  gigantic 
and  militant  combinations  .  .  .  and  they  are  going  incomparably  faster 
towards  this  goal  than  any  of  the  much  advertised  so-called  re- 
volutionary unions"  (Excerpts,  Great  Steel  Strike,  pages  255-265). 

In  spite  of  the  Interchurch  Report's  insistence  in  its 
"Conclusions"  in  Chapter  I  and  in  its  discussion  of  radical- 
ism in  the  steel  strike  in  Chapter  II,  that  the  strike  was  not 
"plotted  and  led  by  reds  or  syndicaHsts  or  Bolshevists  and 
that  "its  real  objects  were  not  the  overthrow  of  established 
leaders  and  established  institutions  of  organized  labor," 
parts  of  Chapters  VI  and  VII  at  the  end  of  the  book  not 
only  show  plainly  and  in  detail  that  the  authors  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  knew  Foster's  radical  views — knew  that 
he  had  come  into  the  A.  F.  of  L.  merely  to  use  it  as  a  vehicle 
to  radical  ends  but  these  chapters  constitute  through  page 
after  page  only  a  thinly  veiled  glorification  of  Foster  and 
his  aims.     The  Interchurch  Report  says : 

"  Mr.  Foster's  business  might  be  described  as  making  the  labor  move- 
ment move.  .  .  .    When  he  took  up  making  the  labor  movement 


204     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

move,  he  tried  it  first  as  a  very  intense  syndicalist,  an  I.  W.  W.  outside 
the  trade  unions.  Little  motion  resulting,  he  '  I'epudiated '  syndicalist 
methods  and  joined  the  Railroad  Carmen's  union  in  order  to  'bore  from 
within '  the  A.  F.  of  L.  In  the  steel  campaign  he  was  most  intensely  boring 
from  within  and  the  labor  movement  knew  it  and  let  him  bore.  It  was 
considered  that  his  boring  might  be  through  the  unions  but  was  cer- 
tainly against  the  anti-union  employers.  That  is,  he  decided  the  labor 
movement  was  the  A.  F.  of  L.  and  not  the  I.  W.  W.  and  that  his  job 
was  making  the  A.  F.  of  L.  move.  .  .  . ' 

"It  ('boring  from  within')  did  not  mean  a  campaign  among  the  steel 
workers  at  the  end  of  which  they  voted  the  I.  W.  W.  ticket.  ...  7/  does 
mean  putting  inside  the  trade  unions  radical  minded  men  who  will  make 
more  trade  unionists.  It  does  involve  the  possibility  that .  .  .  these 
radically  minded  organizers  may  convert  the  trade  unions  if  they  can.  .  .  . 
The  real  problem  which  confronts  the  A.  F.  of  L.  ...  is  industrial  union- 
ism and  the  larger  side  of  it  is  not  borers  but  economic  conditions 
.  .  .  which  latterly  have  exposed  weaknesses  in  craft  unions  and  have 
driven  them  to  essay  amalgamations  and  other  approximations  of  industrial 
organization.  When  a  craft  union  on  strike  sees  brother  unions  in  the 
same  industry  sticking  to  work  .  .  .  that  craft  tinion  begins  to  do  a  lot 
more  thinking  about  industrial  unionism.  .  .  .  When  craft  unions 
promulgate  ambitions  as  did  the  A.  F.  of  L.  in  igig  {date  of  the  steel  strike) 
.  .  .  they  are  forced  automatically  to  considering  industrial  union  prob- 
lems" (Interchurch  Report  Excerpts,  pages  156-159).' 

This  whole  quotation — in  fact  most  of  the  entire  section 
from  which  it  was  taken  continually  resorts  to  the  "under- 

•  It  will  be  better  appreciated  after  reading  Chapter  XXIV  of  the 
present  analysis  that  the  Interchurch  Report  constantly  faces  this 
dilemma:  Its  basic  policy  puts  it  under  the  necessity  of  white- washing 
the  whole  strike  movement  to  the  general  public  and  at  the  same  time 
urging  upon  the  working  classes  the  desirability  of  industrial  as  con- 
trasted with  craft  unionism.  As  part  of  that  argument  it  constantly 
points  out  in  this  section  how  the  A.  F.  of  L.  in  the  steel  strike  was  forced 
to  "various  specious  industrial  efforts, "  or  to  " qua^i-industrial  action, " 
or  to  "leaning  towards  the  One  Big  Union  Idea, "  all  leading  up  to  the 
present  definitely  stated  point  of  view,  which  Foster  and  Debs  and  "Big 
Bill"  Hey  wood  and  all  ultra-radicals  insist  on,  namely  that  industrial 
conditions  are  making  industrial  (radical)  unionism  necessary  and  in- 
evitable and  therefore  the  workers  should  repudiate  craft  tmionism  and 
adopt  industrial  tmionism.  (See  also  pages  343  to  345  of  the  present 
analysis.) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       205 

cover"  phraseology  of  technical  radical  terms  which  are 
carefully  calculated  to  convey  much  more  meaning  to  those 
who  are  familiar  with  these  terms  than  to  outsiders. 

The  Third  International,  in  its  convention  July,  1921  at 
Moscow,  is  on  record  as  officially  recognizing  three  different 
radical  programs  in  America: — that  of  the  I.  W.  W.  which 
is  seeking  to  radicalize  the  American  worker;  Big  Bill  Hey- 
wood  represents  this  group  which  has  just  been  awarded  3 
of  the  16  American  votes  in  the  supreme  world  radical 
council; — that  of  the  "independents"  Hke  Foster  who  are 
"boring  from  within"  the  A.  F.  of  L.  and  who  have  just 
been  awarded  2  of  America's  16  votes;  and  that  of  the 
"New  unions"  (described  by  Mr.  Soule  in  his  book,  the  New 
Unionism),  chief  among  which  is  the  Amalgamated  Cloth- 
ing Workers,  who  are  organizing  chiefly  the  foreign  workers 
into  industrial  unions  and  whose  power  has  just  been  greatly 
increased  by  being  awarded  11  of  America's  16  votes  in  the 
Third  International. 

To  any  one  who  is  familiar  with  these  facts  and  the 
phraseology  used  and  its  real  meaning,  the  above  quotations 
from  the  Interchurch  Report,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
voluminous  intervening  context,  plainly  show  without  any 
regard  to  any  other  information  about,  the  individuals  who 
wrote  them,  that  those  individuals  intimately  sympathize 
with  the  "industrial unionism"  for  which  Mr.  Foster  stands, 
but  regard  "boring  from  within"  the  A.  F.  of  L.  as  too 
indirect  and  subject  to  too  much  antagonism  to  be  an  effec- 
tive way  of  advancing  "industrial  unionism."  They  ob- 
viously believe  and  glory  in  the  fact  that  the  A.  F.  of  L.  is 
rapidly  progressing  toward  "industrial  unionism"  but  they 
believe  this  progress  is  less  because  of  the  influence  of  such 
men  as  Foster  than  because  it  is  being  forced,  by  the  class- 
conscious  ambitions  of  certain  types  of  labor  and  by  its  own 
chauvinistic  ambitions,  to  see  that  craft  union  principles 
continually  handicap  it  and  that  the  only  real  scope  for 
those  ambitions  is  along  the  line  of  industrial  unionism. 
Even  without  the  eulogy  of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 


2o6     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Workers,  the  open  approval  or  disapproval  of  each  other 
form  of  labor  organization  in  proportion  as  its  theories  and 
practises  do  or  do  not  coincide  with  those  of  the  A.  C.  W., 
makes  it  entirely  obvious  that  the  authors  of  the  Inter- 
church  Report  are  in  intimate  sympathy  with  this  latest 
third  type  of  revolutionary  unionism, — the  so-called  "New 
Unionism" — and  look  at  the  whole  labor  problem  ac- 
cordingly. 

The  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers,  whose  radical  aims 
are  specifically  stated  in  the  preamble  to  its  constitution, — 
which  Mr.  Heywood,  the  escaped  I.  W.  W.  leader,  especially 
referred  to  in  his  speech  before  the  Moscow  Radical 
convention  as  "one  of  the  few  favorable  influences 
in  America"  and  which  is  the  chief  exponent  of  the  "New 
Unionism,"  is  defended  by  Mr.  George  Soule  in  the  June 
8th,  1 92 1  issue  of  the  Nation  as  not  actually  being  radical 
on  the  grounds  that  its  members  have  not  "marched  in 
with  red  flags  and  taken  possession  of  the  factories"  or 
"thrown  bombs  into  the  City  Hall." 

Following  the  same  line  of  argument,  the  Interchurch 
Report  concludes  that  because  the  "steel  strike  did  not 
mean  a  campaign  among  the  workers  at  the  end  of  which 
they  voted  the  I.  W.  W.  ticket,"  that  therefore  the  whole 
strike  was  not  radical  but  on  the  contrary  "  extremely  old- 
fashioned."  Such  a  course  of  reasoning,  however,  will  un- 
doubtedly seem  to  the  average  American  to  show,  not  that 
the  steel  strike  was  less  radical,  but  that  the  authors  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  are  more  so. 

Not  only,  however,  is  it  a  matter  of  the  plainest  fact  that 
the  steel  strike  was  planned  and  as  far  as  its  most  prominent 
leader  was  concerned,  "led  by  alien-minded  radicals" — 
whose  object  was  to  go  as  far  as  possible  in  "overthrowing 
the  established  principles  of  organized  labor" ;  not  only  is  it 
plainly  admitted  by  Mr.  Foster  and  the  Interchurch  Report 
that  the  whole  organization  movement  verged  so  close  to 
"industrial"  union  as  to  be  "without  parallel  in  American 
labor  annals"  but  there  is  ample  evidence  that  radicalism 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       207 

in  the  steel  strike  permeated  the  rank  and  file  of  the  strikers 
themselves. 

This  was  repeatedly  alleged  by  the  managers  and  better 
class  of  workers  who  were  called  as  witnesses  by  the  steel 
companies  and  also  was  conspicuously  evident  in  the  testi- 
mony of  strikers  that  the  Senate  Investigating  Committee 
picked  at  random  on  the  streets  of  the  steel  towns.  The 
fact  that  these  men  testified  in  practically  the  same  words 
of  broken  English  that  they  were  striking  for  "eight  hour 
day — no  boss — dollar  an  hour — government  run  mills — 
get  on  street  car — no  pay  nickel — government  run  street 
cars,  etc.,"  speaks  for  itself. 

In  regard  to  all  such  evidence  of  radicalism  among  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  strikers  the  Interchurch  Report  in  its 
second  chapter  insists  that  all  great  strikes  are  always  taken 
advantage  of  by  independent  radical  proselyters  and  that 
this  must  have  been  particularly  the  case  in  a  strike  involv- 
ing so  many  illiterate  foreigners  as  the  steel  strike,  but  that 
such  a  fact  cannot  be  held  against  the  strike  leadership. 
Moreover  the  Interchurch  Report  further  insists  in  its 
second  chapter  that  in  this  strike,  of  the  large  number  of 
radicals  arrested  in  many  districts,  few  if  any  were  tried  and 
convicted.  *  It  states  that  certain  radicals  who  attempted  to 
go  among  the  men  or  circulate  radical  literature  were  pre- 

'The  Interchurch  Report  tries  to  give  the  impression  that  the  fact  that 
men  arrested  as  radicals  were  not  convicted  indicated  that  there  was 
little  or  no  evidence  of  their  radicalism.  Pages  911  through  951  of  the 
Senate  Hearings  are  devoted  to  detailed  and  specific  evidence  of  radical- 
ism in  the  steel  strike  and  of  prominent  strike  leaders  who  were  radicals, 
including  the  president  of  the  strikers'  organization  at  Gary,  also  their 
attorney,  Paul  Glaser,  an  I.  W.  W.  worker  who  admitted  to  govern- 
ment oflficials,  "you  bet  I  am  a  Bolshevik  "  and  dared  the  officials  to  try 
and  do  something  about  it  (page  925) .  The  reason  why  these  men  were 
not  convicted  was  not  lack  of  evidence  but  as  Senator  McKellar  re- 
marked (page  945)  because  "we  have  a  very  liberal  provision  in  our 
Constitution  about  the  freedom  of  the  press  and  freedom  of  speech." 
Yet  the  Interchurch  Report  devotes  pages  to  discussing  the  infringement 
of  the  right  of  free  speech  in  the  steel  strike. 


208     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

vented  by  the  labor  leaders.  It  emphasizes  that  local  steel 
officials  offered  insufficient  proof  for  their  allegation  of 
radicalism  in  the  strike ;  and  it  particularly  emphasizes  that 
in  certain  instances  I.  W.  W.  leaders  and  Mr.  Eugene  V. 
Debs  "severely  criticized  the  whole  plan  in  public  speeches. 
It  was  necessary  to  send  a  committee  to  Debs  before  he  could  be 
induced  to  drop  the  subject"  (Interchurch  Report,  page  36, 
line  15).  Incidentally  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  what 
this  committee  said  to  Debs  that  he  thus  so  quickly  changed 
his  point  of  view  as  to  the  steel  strike. 

Again,  however,  all  these  arguments  in  Chapter  II  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  entirely  lose  whatever  weight  they 
might  otherwise  have  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  in  Chapter  VI  entirely  repudiates  them  and 
devotes  page  after  page  to  showing  that  radical  points  of  view 
on  the  part  of  the  strikers  were  primary  causative  factors  in 
the  strike.  In  describing  what  it  calls  the  "  psychological 
causes"  of  the  strike  the  Interchurch  Report,  beginning 
page  148,  line  12,  says: 

"Whetting  this  state  of  discontent  were  two  other  psychological 
factors  .  .  .  together  they  were  far  more  important  thair  Mr.  Gompers, 
or  Mr.  Foster  or  anybody,  possibly  except  Mr.  Gary.  .  .  . 

"The  data  before  the  Commission  show  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
steel  strike  workers  in  great  numbers  had  the  liveliest  expectation  of 
governmental  assistance  .  .  .  some  believed  Mr.  Wilson  will  run  the 
mills. 

"  The  second  psychological  factor  .  .  .  sprang  from  events  in  Europe. 
The  news  of  two  years'  happenings  there  deeply  influenced  all  labor 
but  the  evidence  indicates  peculiar  influence  on  steel  workers,"  these 
foreign  influences  being,  "news  of  the  probability  or  possibility  of  a 
labor  government  of  the  British  Empire  .  .  .  (and)  the  'Russian  idea' 
embedded  in  the  mind  of  the  great  majority  of  immigrant  workers  .  .  . 
that  the  Russian  government  is  a  laboring  man's  government. " 

In  view  of  the  fact  which  will  be  emphasized  later  in  de- 
tail, that  the  unionization  drive  and  the  strike  at  no  time 
had  the  active  support  of  more  than  20%  of  the  steel  workers 
and  that  these  were  almost  entirely  from  the  "mass  of  low- 
skilled  foreigners"  these  statements  by  the  Interchurch 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       209 

Report  that "  Steel  workers  in  great  numbers  had  the  liveliest 
expectation  of  governmental  assistance — that  some  believed 
"Mr.  Wilson  will  run  the  mills" — that  the  "fact  that  the 
Russian  government  is  a  laboring  man's  government  (was) 
embedded  in  the  minds  of  the  great  majority  of  the  immigrant 
workers"  and  that  these  "were  psychological  factors"  of 
major  importance  in  causing  the  strike  can  hardly  mean 
anything  else  to  the  average  American  than  a  strong  bias 
towards  radicalism  on  the  part  of  such  "great  majority  of 
immigrant  workers."  The  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port does  not  seem  to  regard  such  a  point  of  view  as  radical 
again  may  merely  indicate  not  that  the  steel  strike  was  less 
radical  but  that  the  authors  of  the  Interchurch  Report  are 
more  so. 


M 


CHAPTER  XVII 

RESPONSE   OF   THE   STEEL  WORKERS 

As  a  general  proposition  leadership  is  of  primary  impor- 
tance in  any  movement  but  this  is  not  necessarily  nor  uni- 
versally true.  There  are  conspicuous  instances  of  events  or 
movements  which  have  originated  spontaneously  and, 
though  perhaps  coordinated  by  leadership,  have  developed 
and  moved  independently  and  irrespective  of  that  leadership. 

In  spite  of  the  fact,  therefore,  that  the  whole  idea  and 
plan  of  the  steel  unionization  movement  which  culminated 
in  the  strike,  was  plainly  originated  outside  the  steel  indus- 
try by  men  who  had  no  connection  with  the  steel  industry 
and  at  least  some  of  whom  had  ulterior  motives,  it  is  still 
possible  that  when  that  plan  was  once  put  into  operation, 
the  steel  workers  themselves  might  have  been  so  conscious 
of  their  grievance  and  so  eager  for  any  favorable  opportunity 
for  seeking  a  remedy,  that  their  own  impetus  and  influence 
in  the  organization  effort  and  the  drive  made  all  leadership, 
and  so  all  facts  as  to  the  origin  of  the  plan  itself  and  as  to 
the  radical  or  other  motives  of  the  strike  leaders,  entirely 
secondary. 

This  is  precisely  the  point  of  view  toward  the  whole  strike 
movement  which  the  Interchurch  Report  takes.  It  says 
in  its  * '  Conclusions , ' '  page  15: 

"  12.  No  interpretation  of  the  movement  as  a  plot  or  conspiracy  fits 
the  facts;  that  is,  it  was  a  mass  movement  in  which  leadership  became  of 
secondary  importance. " 

210 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       211 

In  Chapter  VI  (page  153,  line  21),  irrespective  of  the  long 
eulogies  of  Foster  and  his  organizing  ability  and  his  scheme 
already  quoted  which  occur  in  almost  succeeding  pages,  the 
Interchurch  Report  says : 

"  To  the  very  end  the  Foster  machine  was  a  poor  thing  as  a  system  of 
control;  the  strike  moved  on  its  own  legs;  it  was  a  walkout  of  rank  and 
file." 

In  spite  of  the  lengthy  emphasis  which  it  later  puts  on  the 
brilHancy  and  strategy  of  Foster's  plan  and  of  what  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  and  the  A.  F.  of  L.  thought  of  its  possibiHties 
and  of  how  it  won  triumphantly  in  the  stockyards  cam- 
paign, in  the  argument  in  connection  with  its  featured 
"Conclusions,"  the  Interchurch  Report  passes  this  all  over 
with  the  statement  (page  144,  line  27  and  147,  line  17): 

"The  labor  movement  initiated  the  organizing  campaign,  invited  by 
the  steel  workers,  according  to  the  labor  leaders,  invading  where  it 
was  not  wanted  according  to  the  employers.  Both  statements  are 
correct  and  neither  lays  emphasis  on  the  principal  fact  .  .  .  these  steel 
workers  are  more  important  than  their  leaders.  ..." 

"It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  a  strike  does  not  consist 
of  a  plan  and  a  call  for  a  walkout.  There  has  been  many  a  call  with  no 
resultant  walkout;  there  has  been  many  a  strike  with  no  preceding 
plan  or  call  at  all.    Strike  conditions  are  conditions  of  mind.  ..." 

"What  made  300,000  steel  workers  leave  the  mills  on  September  22 
and  stay  away  in  greater  or  fewer  numbers  for  a  period  up  to  three  and 
a  half  months?" 

But  did  300,000  steel  workers  leave  the  mills  on  Septem- 
ber 22d  or  did  any  important  proportion  of  300,000  stay 
away  from  the  mills  anything  like  three  and  a  half  months  ? 
The  Interchurch  Report  offers  no  evidence  that  they  did, 
and  there  is  every  evidence  that  they  did  not. 

It  is  true  that  at  the  time  of  the  strike  the  strike  leaders 
issued  flaming  statements  that  over  300,000  men  were  out, 
just  as  it  is  true  that  before  the  Presidential  election  a  year 
later,  the  Democratic  political  leaders  issued  flaming  state- 
ments announcing  in  statistical  detail  the  rising  flood  of 
Democratic  sentiment  which  was  sweeping  the  country  to 


212     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

overwhelm  the  Republicans;  and  just  as  it  is  true  that  in 
any  great  movement  dealing  with  average  psychology, 
leaders  invariably  talk  in  big  figures  of  sure  victory  to  keep 
up  the  enthusiasm  of  the  rank  and  file. 

These  figures  of  the  strike  leaders  were  specifically  con- 
tradicted at  the  time  by  the  steel  companies.  Although  of 
course  the  steel  companies  had  an  equal  motive  for  putting 
out  small  figures  as  the  strike  leaders  had  for  putting  out 
large  figures,  the  strong  denial  by  the  companies  that  any- 
thing Hke  300,000  men  were  out  at  least  indicates  that  these 
figures  are  open  to  question. '  But  the  Interchurch  Report 
not  only  accepts  the  strike  leaders'  figures  but  does  not  sug- 
gest there  is  the  slightest  ground  for  questioning  them.  It 
simply  assumes  as  a  basic  hypothesis,  disregarding  all  the 
evidence,  of  which  there  is  much,  about  the  soundness  of  that 
hypothesis,  that  the  steel  strike  actually  consisted  of  an 
open  revolt  against  unbearable  working  conditions  on  the 
part  of  over  60%  of  the  whole  industry,  or,  considering  only 
the  manufacturing  departments  which  were  actually  in- 
volved, a  bona  fide  revolt  of  over  75%  of  the  whole  industry. 
On  this  and  one  other  pure  assumption  the  Interchurch 
Report  bases  its  whole  argument  as  to  the  causes  of  the 
strike  and  reaches  its  conclusions  that  it  was  a  "walkout  of 
rank  and  file  ...  in  which  leadership  was  secondary." 

The  method  of  reasoning  of  the  Interchurch  Report  as 
to  the  cause  of  the  steel  strike  is  simple  and  obvious.  En- 
tirely disregarding  the  fact  that  a  strike  has  become  a  very 
ordinary  thing  and  a  very  casual  thing  to  many  workers 
and  that  this  had  become  particularly  true  in  the  period 
under  discussion  in  which  the  country  had  been  having  from 

'  Mr.  George  Soule,  who  had  charge  of  field  investigators  which  were 
sent  by  the  Commissioners  of  Inquiry  into  the  Pittsburg  district,  has 
stated  that  in  view  of  the  utterly  contradictory  claims  of  steel  officials 
and  of  strike  leaders  in  regard  to  the  number  of  men  on  strike  and  in 
view  of  all  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  strike  situation,  he  found 
it  impossible  to  gain  accurate  data  as  to  the  number  of  men  striking  or 
working. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       213 

three  to  four  thousand  strikes  a  year — many  of  them  for 
such  objects  as  sympathy  for  the  Irish  Repubhc  or  as  a  pro- 
test against  Poland's  fighting  Russia  or  as  a  political  move 
in  some  Brindell's  ambition  to  get  rich  quick  and  a  host  of 
similar  causes — the  Interchurch  Report  thinks  of  a  strike 
only  as  a  great  desperate  last  resort  of  men  in  a  desperate 
last  resort  frame  of  mind.  This  assumption  that  a  strike  is 
necessarily  a  great  desperate  last  resort  step  on  the  part  of 
men  in  a  desperate  last  resort  frame  of  mind  plus  the  as- 
sumption that  an  overwhelming  proportion  of  the  steel 
workers  so  revolted  is  the  basis  of  the  Interchurch  Report's 
whole  argument  as  to  the  grievances  of  the  steel  workers  and 
of  its  conclusion  that  these  grievances  were  actual. 

Moreover  the  line  of  reasoning  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
based  on  this  hypothesis  is  not  only  correspondingly  subject 
to  fallacy  but  becomes  more  and  more  fallacious  the  farther 
it  goes  until  it  finds  itself  accusing  the  Federal  Administra- 
tion and  Attorney  General  Palmer  and  General  Pershing 
and  the  Senate  Committee  (pages  148-149) — and  what  has 
more  truth — the  success  of  the  Russian  revolution  of  being 
major  contributing  causes  of  the  steel  strike. 

It  has  already  been  emphasized  in  the  introduction  to  this 
section  of  the  analysis  that  in  regard  to  the  question  of 
working  hours,  working  conditions  and  similar  alleged  griev- 
ances of  the  men,  the  fact  as  to  whether  or  not  they  were 
grievances  depended  on  whether  or  not  the  majority  of  the 
steel  workers  regarded  them  as  grievances  and  that  the  best 
available  evidence  on  this  point,  other  things  being  equal, 
consisted  of  the  degree  to  which  the  workers  themselves 
actually  responded  to  the  unionization  drive  and  strike 
order,  which  at  least  to  a  certain  extent  was  supposed  to 
constitute  a  "vote"  on  these  very  points. 

Again  for  the  same  reason,  the  best  available  evidence  as 
to  whether  or  not  the  men  themselves  wanted  the  proposed 
Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining  as  a  remedy  for  the 
alleged  grievances  and  therefore  whether  or  not  Judge  Gary 
was  justified  in  refusing  to  institute  such  Trade  Union  Col- 


214     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

lective  Bargaining  is  to  be  found  in  the  actual  response  of 
the  men  to  the  unionization  drive  and  the  strike  order. 

Finally  it  is  the  plain  statement  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  that  its  "rock  bottom  evidence"  was  the  "affidavits 
of  500  strikers"  and  it  is  most  obvious  that  its  chief  method 
of  reasoning  and  presenting  evidence  consists  of  finding  out 
and  showing  the  attitude  of  a  few  strikers  and  then  predicat- 
ing the  same  attitude  to  the  whole  industry  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  whole  industry  struck. 

For  all  these  reasons,  therefore,  the  actual  facts  as  to  how 
the  workers  did  respond  to  the  unionization  drive  and  of  how 
big  a  percentage  of  workers  really  responded  to  the  strike 
call  is  perhaps  the  most  important  single  group  of  facts  in  the 
steel  controversy. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not 
even  mention  its  existence,  there  is  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  very  definite  evidence  as  to  the  actual  response  by 
the  workers  to  the  strike  order.  This  evidence  is  available 
chiefly  from  three  sources :  first,  the  evidence  of  the  Senate 
Hearings;  second,  evidence  from  the  financial  statements 
and  wage  budgets  of  the  Steel  Corporation  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  accepts  as  authoritative  in  other  con- 
nections; third,  evidence  from  the  circumstances  and 
development  of  the  whole  situation. 

On  September  25th  John  Fitzpatrick,  Chairman  of  the 
Special  Strike  Committee,  testified  (Senate  Hearings,  Part 
I,  pages  25  and  26)  that  over  300,000  men  had  joined  the 
unions  and  that  all  of  them  were  on  strike. 

The  official  statement  signed  by  the  National  Committee 
of  organization  of  steel  workers  circulated  generally  at  the 
time  and  reproduced  in  full  in  Senate  Hearings,  Part  II, 
page  498,  says: 

"  On  September  22  .  .  .  the  following  is  the  number  of  men  on  strike 
at  the  various  places: 

Homestead 9,000 

Braddock 5,000 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       215 

Rankin 3.ooo 

Clairton 4.000 

Duquesne  and  McKeesport 12,000, 

etc." 

Mr.  Foster  in  his  book,  The  Great  Steel  Strike  (page  100) 
says: 

"On  Tuesday  the  23rd  (September)  304,000  had  quit  their  posts  in 
the  mills  and  furnaces.  All  week  their  ranks  were  augmented  till  by 
September  30th,  365,000  were  on  strike.  .  .  .  The  number  of  strikers 
were  as  follows: 

Homestead 9,000 

Braddock 10,000 

Rankin S.ooo 

Clairton 4,000 

Duquesne  and  McKeesport 12,000, 

etc.,  etc." 

In  regard  to  the  number  of  men  on  strike  in  two  cases, 
Donora  and  Wheeling,  the  evidence  before  the  Senate  In- 
vestigation tends  to  show  that  the  strike  leaders'  figures 
were  substantially  correct.  In  every  other  case,  however, 
where  the  subject  was  investigated,  the  Senate  Investiga- 
tion showed  conclusively  that  the  official  figures  of  the 
strike  leaders  were  not  merely  inaccurate  but  ridiculously 
untrue. 

The  strike  leaders'  figures  show  9,000  men  on  strike  at 
Homestead.  The  Senate  Committee  personally  visited  and 
went  through  the  Homestead  Mills  on  October  loth.  Out 
of  a  normal  working  force  of  11,500,  9044  were  actually  at 
work  and  only  2455,  of  whom  none  were  Americans,  were 
away  from  work  for  any  reason.  Moreover  at  the  Senate 
Committee's  request,  Mr.  Oursler,  the  Superintendent, 
furnished  an  exact  tabulation  of  the  number  of  men  working 
and  the  number  of  men  away  from  work  for  each  day  the 
strike  had  been  in  force.  On  no  day  had  there  been  more 
than  4358,  or  a  little  less  than  one  half  the  number  the 
strike  leaders  claimed,  absent  from  the  mills  for  any  reason. 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  481.) 


2i6     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  strike  leaders'  statement  claimed  that  4000  workers — 
the  entire  working  force — were  on  strike  at  Clairton.  The 
Senate  Committee  found  by  personal  visit  that  2600  men 
were  working  and  only  1400  men  were  away  from  the  plant 
for  any  reason. 

The  strike  leaders'  statement  claims  12,000  men  actually 
on  strike  at  Duquesne  and  McKeesport.  The  Senate  Com- 
mittee personally  visited  the  Duquesne  works.  Out  of  a 
normal  working  force  of  5700,  5370  were  actually  at  work 
and  only  330  men  away  from  work  for  any  cause.  Again  at 
the  request  of  the  committee,  Mr.  Diehl,  the  manager,  fur- 
nished the  committee  a  statement  as  to  the  number  of  men 
working  or  absent  each  day  since  the  strike  began.  This 
statement  again  showed  that  instead  of  the  100%  claimed 
by  the  strike  leaders  to  be  on  strike,  on  only  the  first  two 
days  of  the  strike  had  there  been  as  many  as  25%  of  the  men 
absent  from  the  mills  for  any  cause.  The  balance  of  the 
12,000  total  working  force  of  the  Duquesne,  McKeesport 
district,  which  the  strike  leaders  claimed  were  all  on  strike, 
consisted  of  the  employees  of  the  National  Tube  Company 
at  McKeesport.  Of  the  normal  working  force  of  7000,  the 
Senate  Committee  found  by  personal  visit  to  this  plant  that 
6500  were  at  work  and  only  500  absent  for  any  reason.  For 
this  district  therefore  instead  of  a  total  of  12,000  men  on 
strike,  as  the  strike  leaders  stated,  only  830  men  were 
absent  from  the  mills  for  any  cause. 

In  other  words  in  these  four  important  districts  in  which 
the  strike  leaders  claimed  in  detailed  public  statements  that 
25,000  men  were  striking  the  Senators  found  by  personal 
visit  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  week  of  the  strike 
only  3696  men,  or  only  16%  of  the  number  claimed  by  the 
strike  leaders,  were  away  from  their  jobs  for  any  cause. 

Because  of  motor  trouble  the  Senate  Committee  could 
not  make  a  personal  visit  to  Braddock  and  Rankin  but  there 
is  ample  evidence  to  indicate  that  instead  of  all  the  men 
being  on  strike,  as  the  strike  leaders  claimed,  at  these  plants, 
these  plants  were  practically  in  full  operation. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       217 

Judge  Gary  stated  before  the  Senate  Committee^  that  the 
Steel  Corporation  was  keeping  the  closest  possible  record  of 
the  number  of  men  away  from  the  mills  during  the  strike 
and  that  at  no  time  were  there  more  than  28%  of  all  steel 
workers,  or  more  than  40%  of  the  men  in  the  plants  actually 
involved  in  the  strike,  absent  from  the  mills  for  any  cause, 
which  included  those  sick,  intimidated,  or  playing  safe  by 
taking  a  vacation,  as  well  as  those  striking,  and  that  the 
high  mark  of  absenteeism  was  reduced  rapidly  after  the  first 
few  daj^s  of  the  strike  when  measiu-es  were  taken  to  protect 
the  workers  from  strike  violence. 

In  other  words  Judge  Gary  stated  that  the  nvmiber  of 
workers  absent  from  the  mills  for  all  causes  and  in  all  plants 
was,  when  at  its  height,  less  than  half  the  number  claimed 
by  the  strike  leaders  and  that  that  percentage  reduced 
itself  rapidly  from  day  to  day  as  soon  as  protection  was 
furnished.  Ten  days  later  the  Senate  Committee  by  per- 
sonal investigation  at  a  number  of  the  mills  found  that  the 
number  of  workers  absent  for  all  causes  averaged  only  16% 
of  the  number  the  strike  leaders  claimed  to  be  on  strike  and 
even  less  than  16%  of  the  total  number  of  employees. 
Considering  the  fact  that  the  strike  leaders'  statements 
were  entirely  untrue  in  the  case  of  the  mills  visited  by  the 
Senate  Committee  and  the  fact  that  the  Senate  Commit- 
tee's personal  investigation,  as  far  as  it  went,  entirely  sub- 
stantiated Judge  Gary's  statements  in  regard  to  the  whole 
industry,  it  is  correspondingly  probable  that  the  strike 
leaders'  statements  were  equally  false  in  regard  to  most 
other  plants  and  that  at  the  end  of  the  first  two  weeks  of 
the  strike  the  percentage  of  strikers  everywhere  dropped 
to  some  20%  of  the  workers  even  in  the  plants  actually  in- 
volved. 

That  the  number  of  strikers  throughout  the  industry 
had  dropped  to  approximately  20%  by  that  time  and 
dropped  even  lower  during  the  succeeding  period  is  also 
clearly  indicated  by  the  second  group  of  evidence  which 

'  Senate  Hearings,  page  154. 


2i8     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

specifically  includes  all  the  plants  of  the  Steel  Corpora- 
tion. 

The  eighteenth  annual  report  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corpora- 
tion is  the  official  statement  of  the  directors  of  the  company 
to  their  stockholders  in  regard  to  its  operation  during  19 19. 
This  report  was  made  on  March  23,  1920,  more  than  two 
months  after  the  steel  strike  had  ended  in  victory  for  the 
steel  companies  and  had  ceased  to  be  an  issue.  This  report 
consisted  chiefly  of  a  financial  statement  as  to  the  company's 
condition  which  was  audited  by  Price  Waterhouse  and 
Company  and  which  was  accepted  by  the  United  States 
Treasury  Department  as  the  basis  on  which  466  millions  of 
dollars  taxes  was  levied  and  paid.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
any  attempt  should  have  been  made  under  such  circum- 
stances to  manipulate  this  statement  because  of  a  strike 
that  had  ended  victoriously  for  the  company  months 
previously. 

On  page  29  of  this  report  is  a  table  showing  in  detail  for 
191 8  and  for  1919  the  number  of  steel  employees  and  the 
wage  budgets.  Both  the  total  number  of  employees  and  the 
wage  budgets,  as  shown  in  these  figures,  the  Interchurch 
Report  accepts  and  uses  without  question  in  its  chapter  on 
wages,  and,  as  has  already  been  stated,  they  are  an  impor- 
tant part  of  the  general  financial  statement  by  the  corpora- 
tion which  was  certified  to  by  Price  Waterhouse  and  Co. 
These  figures  show  that  the  average  number  of  em- 
ployees per  month  in  19 19  was  6.18%  less  than  in 
1918. 

Now  in  1 91 8  the  war  was  at  its  height.  1919  was  a  year 
of  at  least  some  let-down  and  it  is  inevitable  that,  without 
considering  the  strike,  there  should  have  been  some  decrease 
in  employment  all  through  the  year.  But  even  if  it  is  as- 
sumed that  there  was  no  decrease  in  employment  whatever 
as  compared  with  191 8  up  to  the  time  of  the  strike,  and 
that  this  whole  decrease  was  concentrated  into  the  strike 
months,  from  September  22nd  on — one  quarter  of  the  year 
— ^this  would  only  be  a  decrease  of  24%  for  these  months. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE      219 

But  it  is  a  known  fact  that^  there  were  less  men  employed 
from  January  to  September,  191 9,  than  during  the  height 
of  the  war  period  so  that  the  average  number  of  men  on 
strike  must  have  been  correspondingly  less. 

This  same  table  also  states  specifically  that  during  the 
month  in  191 9  in  which  the  average  number  of  employees 
was  least — October,  the  peak  of  the  strike  period — the  pay- 
rolls show  an  average  of  213,081  men  working.  This  is  just 
39,025  less  than  the  average  for  the  year  therefore  is  15% 
of  all  employees.  Assuming  that  these  absentees  were  all 
from  the  manufacturing  plants  which  were  affected  by  the 
strike,  they  show  only  20.5%  of  such  workers  away  from 
their  work  for  any  reason  during  the  month  the  strike  was 
at  its  height. 

Both  the  Interchurch  Report,  and  Mr.  Foster  in  his  book, 
the  Great  Steel  Strike,  repeatedly  assert  that  the  steel  strike 
involved  chiefly  the  low-skilled  foreign  workers. 

The  Senate  Committee,  through  personal  visits  to  leading 
steel  plants,  established  as  a  fact  that  on  October  loth,  some 
two  weeks  after  the  strike  started,  that  at  least  in  those 
plants,  an  average  of  not  more  than  16%  of  the  steel  workers 
who  the  strike  leaders  claimed  were  striking,  were  actually 
away  from  the  mills  for  any  cause. 

The  official  payroll  and  wage  budget  figures  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation  state  specifically  that  in  only  one  month 
during  the  year — October,  the  peak  of  the  strike  period — 
did  the  number  of  men  actually  working  drop  as  low  as  15% 
under  normal  for  the  entire  Corporation  or  as  low  as  20% 
under  normal  for  the  manufacturing  plants  and  the  same 
figures  show  clearly  that  for  the  rest  of  the  strike  period  less 
than  20%  of  the  normal  working  force  in  the  manufacturing 
plants  were  away  from  their  jobs  for  any  cause. 

The  whole  steel  strike  itself,  therefore,  far  from  being  an 

'  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  Monthly  Review  for  June,  1920, 
page  152  says:  "Maximum  (steel  employment)  is  reached  in  the  month 
of  January,  1919.  From  that  point  there  is  a  general  tendency  to 
decline." 


220     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

open  revolt  of  three-fourths  of  all  steel  workers  was  very 
plainly  a  movement  involving  half,  and  probably  less  than 
half  of  merely  the  low-skilled  foreign  workers  of  the  industry. 

The  question  remains  as  to  whether,  even  in  regard  to 
this  half  of  the  low-skilled  foreigners  which  constituted 
only  a  fifth  of  the  steel  workers,  the  movement  was  actually 
a  "walkout  of  rank  and  file"  as  the  Interchurch  Report 
states,  "in  which  leadership  became  secondary,"  or  whether 
it  was  merely  the  result,  as  the  steel  companies  stated,  of 
clever  and  persistent  agitation  which  achieved  such  success 
as  it  did  entirely  through  an  appeal  to  the  ignorance  and 
prejudice  of  these  unskilled  foreign  workers. 

The  whole  unionizing  attempt  was  begun,  as  has  been 
shown,  by  Foster's  original  plan  to  send  into  the  steel  cen- 
ters "crews  of  organizers  with  large  sums  of  money"  to 
"hold  great  mass  meetings  built  up  by  extensive  advertising 
everywhere"  and  to  make  a  "hurricane  drive  that  would 
catch  the  workers'  imaginations  and  sweep  them  into  the 
unions  en  masse."  This  whole  plan  was  obviously  based  on 
strong  leadership  and  the  clever  manipulation  of  mass 
psychology  by  that  leadership. 

At  the  psychological  moment  the  movement  was  to  be 
turned  into  a  "decisive  flood"  by  the  "formation  of  com- 
mittees to  formulate  grievances."  Then  these  grievances 
were  to  be  presented  to  the  employer  on  threat  of  strike. 
The  basis  of  this  second  step — the  decision  as  to  when  the 
psychological  moment  had  arrived  and  the  manipulation 
of  events  accordingly  were  preeminently  matters  of  wise 
and  able  leadership. 

The  instigation  of  the  unionization  drive  was  heralded 
immediately  and  stentoriously  to  steel  workers  throughout 
the  country  not  only  by  the  labor  leaders  but  everywhere 
in  the  public  press.  Yet  not  only  did  the  steel  workers  them- 
selves fail  to  show  any  signs  of  starting  any  "mass  move- 
ment which  made  leadership  secondary"  but  their  primary 
response  was  so  negligible  that  it  necessitated  an  entire 
change  of  tactics  on  the  part  of  the  leaders.  This  initial  failure 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       221 

Foster  specifically  admits  and  blames  specifically  and  re- 
peatedly on  the  lack  of  enough  leadership  and  enough  money 
to  "lead"  properly. 

In  regard  to  the  decisive  nature  of  leadership  or  lack  of 
leadership  at  this  stage  of  the  movement,  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  says : 

"...  great  drops  in  active  membership  had  occurred  .  .  .  after  the 
'flu  ban'  in  the  Chicago  district  had  caused  the  National  Organizers 
to  be  withdrawn"  (page  154,  line  14). 

The  unionizing  effort  failing  in  its  original  aim  of  union- 
izing the  steel  workers  by  assault,  "by  catching  their  imag- 
inations and  sweeping  them  into  the  unions  en  masse," 
the  union  leaders  entirely  changed  their  tactics  and  for 
their  previous  plan  of  unionization  by  assault,  substituted 
the  plan  of  unionization  by  siege  and  accretion.  More 
organizers  were  called  in,  more  money  was  raised  and  a 
prolonged  campaign  begun  to  bring  home  to  the  workers 
a  realization  of  their  grievances  and  to  educate  them  as  to 
the  need  of  Trade  Union  Collective  Bargaining  as  a  remedy 
for  those  grievances.  In  other  words  more  leadership  was 
applied. 

The  basis  of  this  campaign  of  siege  was  the  constant  plea 
to  the  workers  of:  "Organize  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you"  (Interchurch  report,  Page  160,  line  i). 
As  to  what  "all  these  things"  were  that  were  to  be  " added 
unto"  the  steel  worker  it  is  clear  from  the  Interchurch 
Report's  own  statements  that  they  consisted  of  almost  any 
promise  which  the  individual  organizer  thought  could  get  the 
individual  foreign  worker's  name  or  mark  on  the  union  card. 

Foster  refers  repeatedly  to  the  effectiveness  in  this  part 
of  the  campaign  of  many  clever  devices  of  leadership,  in 
regard  to  one  of  which,  a  red,  white  and  blue  membership 
card,  he  says,  "more  than  one  man  joined  merely  on  that 
account"  {Great  Steel  Strike,  page  35,  line  33),  and  in 
regard  to  the  general  effect  of  this  leadership  he  says  on 
page  38: 


222     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"Organization  .  .  .  depends  almost  entirely  upon  the  honesty, 
intelligence,  power  and  persistence  of  the  organizing  forces." 

And  again  on  page  105: 

*'  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  strike  followed  strictly  the  lines  of  organiza- 
tion. In  hardly  a  single  instance  did  the  unorganized  go  out  spon- 
taneously. " 

But  again  far  from  arousing  any  mass  revolt  that  took 
matters  out  of  the  leaders'  hands  and  made  leadership 
secondary,  this  second  line  of  tactics  obviously  succeeded 
little  or  no  better  than  the  first. 

The  skilled  and  the  American  worker  were  practically 
not  being  influenced  at  all.  Even  Mr.  Foster  says  in  regard 
to  the  American  worker: 

"  It  has  been  charged  that  the  unions  neglected  the  American  Steel 
workers  ...  If  anything  the  reverse  is  true.  .  .  .  the  Americans 
and  the  skilled  workers  generally  proved  indifferent  union  men  in  the 
steel  campaign  .  .  .  when  compared  with  the  foreigners  they  made  a 
poor  showing.  .  .  .  They  organized  slowly;  then  they  struck  reluc- 
tantly and  scatteringly.  .  .  .  the  foreign  unskilled  workers  (however) 
covered  themselves  with  glory.  .  .  .  They  proved  themselves  altogether 
worthy  of  the  best  American  labor  traditions "  (Excerpts,  Great  Steel 
Strike,  pages  196,  200). 

Even  in  the  case  of  the  unskilled  foreign  worker,  however, 
whose  ignorance  and  prejudices  could  be  so  much  more 
easily  played  upon  by  skilled  agitators,  the  unionizing  effort 
so  failed  in  general  to  educate  them  as  to  their  grievances, 
just  as  it  had  failed  to  "sweep  them  off  their  feet  en  masse," 
that  even  by  August,  191 9,  a  year  after  the  drive  started,  the 
strike  leaders  themselves  did  not  claim  a  union  membership 
of  more  than  100,000 — 20%  of  all  steel  workers,  or  3^  even 
the  unskilled  foreigners. 

As  to  this  fact  there  is  no  question.  In  making  his  report 
to  the  A.  F.  of  L.  on  the  steel  campaign,  in  July,  1919,  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  only  claimed  the  union  membership  to  be  100,- 
000  and  he  testified  later  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  15) : 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       223 

"Senator  Wolcott:  What  was  the  total  number  of  members  in  the 
steel  mills  in  your  organization  at  the  time  this  vote  was  taken? 

"Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  At  the  time  the  vote  was  taken  (August)  I  should 
say  about  100,000. 

"Senator  Wolcott:  And  the  total  number  of  men  in  the  industry 
available  for  entrance  into  the  organization,  if  they  saw  fit,  was  how 
many? 

"Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  There  was  probably  about  500,000.  We  had  one- 
fifth." 

Moreover  this  conspicuous  failure  on  tne  part  of  the  great 
mass  of  steel  workers  to  show  any  interest  in  the  unionizing 
drive  after  a  whole  year  of  such  intensive  and  expensive 
effort  was  not  the  only  problem  that  confronted  the  strike 
leaders.  By  the  summer  of  191 9  even  their  one-fifth  began 
alternately  to  show  signs  of  getting  out  of  hand  and  of  dis- 
integrating. 

Foster  said: 

"  The  foreigner  wants  more  money.  . . .  His  idealism  stretches  about  as 
far  as  his  shortest  working  day.  .  .  .  He  comes  in  (to  the  union)  quite 
readily  but  if  you  don't  get  him  the  results,  he  drops  away  quite  readily 
also"  (Interchurch  Report,  page  162). 

The  Interchurch  Report  itself  states  on  page  154: 

"Herd  psychology  was  far  more  powerful  than  .  .  .  doctrines  .  .  .  the 
leaders'  greatest  difficulty  beginning  in  the  spring  .  .  .  was  in  with- 
standing the  mass  feeling  they  had  fostered  .  .  .  the  movement  before 
getting  to  the  hundred  thousand  mark  reached  a  point  where  by  the 
working  of  the  very  idea  that  built  it,  it  threatened  to  break  out  in 
sporadic  strikelets  or  break  down  altogether." 

It  was  obviously  these  conditions — the  meager  success 
of  their  year  long  agitation  and  the  immediate  threat  of  los- 
ing even  what  they  had  achieved,  which  in  the  summer  of 
1 91 9  forced  the  strike  leaders  back  to  their  only  alternative 
strategy — that  of  risking  everything  in  a  second  "sweeping 
the  workers  off  their  feet"  campaign. 

The  election  of  committees  to  "formulate  grievances  and 
present  these  to  the  employers"  under  threat  of  strike  was, 
according  to  the  original  plan,  to  have  been  the  climax  of 


224     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  first  "hurricane  drive"  a  year  before.  But  this  drive, 
as  has  been  stated,  had  not  achieved  sufficient  results  to 
warrant  risking  such  a  step.  The  situation  was  such  in 
August,  1919,  however,  that  as  the  last  trump  card  it  had 
to  be  risked. 

"  The  leaders  had  to  let  it  (the  whole  movement)  go  on  to  a  strike  as 
the  next  means  of  success  or  let  it  go  all  to  pieces"  (Interchurch  Report, 
page  155). 

Accordingly  the  "grievances  were  formulated  "  consisting 
of  12  demands  and  although  Judge  Gary  was  the  head  of 
only  one  of  the  many  employing  companies,  a  sensational 
appeal  was  made  to  him  under  circumstances  of  the  utmost 
publicity.  The  strike  vote  was  widely  advertised  and 
taken  at  the  same  time  this  appeal  was  being  made.  An- 
nouncements were  sent  widespread  that  50,000  men  a  week 
were  now  joining  the  unions.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  was  appealed  to  through  the  newspapers  as  well  as 
directly,  and  in  general  every  possible  method  of  arousing 
and  manipulating  mass  psychology  was  used  with  all  the 
ability  and  force  the  Labor  Movement  could  command. 

At  the  time  of  the  strike  itself,  whether  or  not  the  threats, 
intimidation  and.  violence  played  as  big  a  part  as  was 
claimed,  there  is  no  question  but  that  every  psychological 
device  was  adopted  to  make  the  strike  seem  a  mass  move- 
ment— an  "overwhelming  revolt  of  rank  and  file."  The 
widely  published  statement  that  300,000  and  then  365,000 
workers  were  actually  on  strike  was  obviously  one  such 
device.  Yet  at  the  very  time  such  claims  were  being  adver- 
tised, the  Senate  Committee  found  in  the  plants  it  visited 
an  average  of  over  84%  of  all  workers  at  work  as  usual  and 
during  the  first  and  admittedly  most  successful  month  of  the 
strike,  an  average  of  over  80%  of  all  workers  of  the  Steel 
Corporation  even  in  the  plants  directly  aflfected  by  the 
strike,  worked  as  usual. 

In  so  far  then,  as  the  unionization  drive  and  the  strike 
constituted  a  vote — as  the  strike  leaders  insisted  in  advance 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       225 

that  it  would — as  to  the  attitude  of  the  steel  workers  them- 
selves towards  their  alleged  grievances  and  towards  trade 
union  collective  bargaining,  both  the  unionization  drive  and 
the  strike  showed  that  80%  of  the  steel  workers  did  not 
regard  the  alleged  grievances  as  real,  and  did  not  desire 
trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry. 

Moreover,  even  in  regard  to  the  20%  of  steel  workers, 
who,  through  their  action  in  the  unionization  drive  and  the 
strike,  "voted"  that  they  did  believe  the  alleged  grievances 
to  be  real,  and  did  desire  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
as  a  remedy,  these  further  facts  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration. 

This  20%  consisted  almost  entirely  of  illiterate,  unskilled 
foreigners.  It  represented  only  about  one-half  even  of  such 
unskilled  foreigners  in  the  industry.  Such  unskilled  for- 
eigners obviously  were  most  susceptible  to  skilled  agitation 
cleverly  calculated  to  take  advantage  of  their  ignorance  and 
prejudices,  so  that  their  "vote"  did  not  necessarily  repre- 
sent their  own  unbiased  judgment. 

When  therefore,  after  a  year  of  intensive  and  expensive 
but  largely  unsuccessful  effort — and  under  the  additional 
incentive  of  the  fact  that  even  such  organization  as  they 
had  was  showing  signs  of  going  to  pieces — the  strike  leaders 
took  the  bold  step  of  publicly  demanding  that  Judge  Gary 
should  meet  them  in  a  conference  which  was  to  institute 
trade  union  collective  bargaining,  and  thus  officially  give 
them  the  recognition  which  the  steel  workers  themselves 
had  consistently  refused  to  give  them,  Judge  Gary  in  refus- 
ing to  meet  the  strike  leaders  in  such  conference,  undoubted- 
ly  represented,  as  he  stated  he  did,  the  opinion  and  desires 
of  the  steel  industry  itself,  including  the  great  mass  of 
steel  workers  as  well  as  of  the  management. 


There  can  be  no  question,  however,  that  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  and  more  and  more  as  a  matter  of  general  recognition, 
industrial  controversies  and  particularly  controversies  that 

IS 


226       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

affect  great  basic  industries  or  have  to  do  with  the  working 
and  living  conditions  of  great  masses  of  people,  involve  the 
interests  of  three  parties — not  only  of  the  employers  and 
employees  that  constitute  the  industry,  but  of  the  public  as 
well. 

Even  if  it  must  be  granted  then  that  the  steel  industry 
itself,  by  an  immense  majority  vote  of  all  parties  in  the 
industry,  refused  to  recognize  the  12-hour  day  and  other 
conditions  existing  in  the  industry  as  grievances,  and  re- 
fused to  accept  trade  union  collective  bargaining  for  the 
industry,  nevertheless  the  question  still  remains  as  to 
whether  or  not  these,  and  perhaps  certain  other  issues  raised 
during  the  strike,  have  such  a  social  significance  as  to 
warrant  an  independent  and  perhaps  a  different  decision  as 
to  their  desirability  in  the  steel  industry  from  the  point  of 
view  of  public  interest. 

The  Interchurch  Report  lays  great  stress  on  the  general 
social  aspect  of  collective  bargaining  as  a  means  of  con- 
trolling working  conditions.  It  makes  a  particular  point  of 
the  social  aspect  of  the  12-hour  day.  It  raises  and  strongly 
emphasizes  other  social  questions  in  connection  with  the 
steel  strike.  Moreover  it  advances  points  of  view  and  ex- 
presses conclusions  in  regard  to  these  questions  which  it 
specifically  seeks  to  apply  to  industry  as  a  whole,  and  espe- 
cially recommends  to  public  attention  as  a  basis  of  public 
opinion  and  action.  The  social  aspects  of  such  issues  in  the 
steel  strike  therefore  deserve  special  attention. 


PART  ONE 
SECTION  C 

Issues  in  the  Steel  Strike  and  arguments  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  which  largely  involve  social  issues  or  questions  of  public 
police  and  therefore  personal  opinion  or  point  of  view. 

No  attempt  is  here  made  to  present  a  full,  adequate  argument 
on  such  subjects.  What  is  chiefly  attempted  is  to  analyze  the 
argument  and  conclusions  of  the  Interchurch  Report  as  to  such 
subjects  and  to  present  briefly  facts  whose  consideration  is 
necessary  to  any  sound  conclusion  but  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  has  failed  to  consider. 


227 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  TWELVE  HOUR  DAY 

The  grounds  upon  which  the  Interchurch  Report  most 
bitterly  and  frequently  denounces  the  12  hour  day  are 
those  of  its  alleged  social  effects. 

It  characterizes  the  12  hour  day  as  a  "barbarism  that 
penalizes  the  country."     It  claims  that  workers  are  being 

" Un- Americanized  by  the  12  hour  day"  and  that  "Americanization 
.  .  .  cannot  take  place  while  the  12  hour  day  persists  "  (page  84) 

and  recommends  (page  250)  that  the 

"Government  provide  by  law  against  working  days  that  bring  over- 
fatigue and  deprive  the  individual,  his  home  and  his  community  of  that 
minimum  of  time  which  gives  him  an  opportunity  to  discharge  all  his 
obligations  as  a  social  being  in  a  democratic  society." 

The  Interchurch  Report  however  entirely  fails  to  make 
any  adequate  argument  or  present  any  adequate  evidence 
as  to  the  unsocial  effects  of  the  12  hour  day.  Its  whole 
evidence  consists  of : 

First:  A  page  of  testimony  of  A.  Pido,  an  immigrant 
striker  who  was  a  witness  of  the  strike  leaders  before  the 
Senate  Committee  and  who  stated  he  cotild  not  go  to  night 
school  because  of  his  long  hours : 

Second:  The  testimony  before  the  same  committee  of 
Father  Kazinci,  a  Slovak  priest,  who,  in  contrast  to  practi- 
cally all  other  priests  and  ministers  in  the  strike  district, 

229 


230    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

who  Mr.  Foster  complains  were  unanimously  against  the 
strike,  became  a  prominent  strike  leader  and  who  stated 
that  working  hours  and  conditions  were  disgusting  the 
foreign  worker  with  America  and  tending  to  make  him  go 
back  to  the  old  country : 

Third:  A  table  showing  that  over  a  certain  period, 
whether  of  months  or  years  is  not  mentioned,  169  workers 
"dropped  out"  of  night  English  classes  in  South  Chicago 
public  schools  "for  reasons  connected  with  hours" ;  and 

Fourth:  Miscellaneous  references  to  strikers'  statement 
that  the  12  hour  day  left  no  time  for  family  life. 

The  Interchurch  Report,  moreover,  does  not  even  suggest 
that  anything  may  be  said  in  favor  of  the  individual  or  social 
value  of  long  hard  work  and  otherwise  treats  the  whole 
subject  of  the  social  aspect  of  the  12  hour  day  as  though  the 
mere  statement  of  one  of  its  smaller  aspects  carried  its  owh 
conclusion  as  to  the  whole  problem. 

This  type  of  argument,  which  seeks  to  show  through 
quoting  isolated  instances  that  the  12  hour  day  makes 
education  impossible,  can  of  course  be  met  by  a  host  of 
isolated  instances  of  men  who  have  worked  12  hours  or  more 
a  day  and  still  educated  themselves  and  advanced  rapidly  in 
the  world.  Charles  M.  Schwab,  Farrell,  Buffington,  Frick, 
Carnegie,  Carnegie's  famous  group  of  29  partners,  and  most 
of  the  other  outstanding  steel  leaders  all  came  up  from  day 
labor  in  the  steel  industry  and  every  one  of  them  worked 
the  12  hour  shift.  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  A.  Garfield, 
Thomas  Edison,  are  merely  conspicuous  examples  of  a  great 
class  of  Americans  whose  success  has  been  our  special 
national  pride  because  it  was  built  up  in  spite  of  the  fact — 
or  perhaps,  as  many  of  these  men  themselves  have  claimed, 
because  of  the  fact — that  they  have  had  to  get  their  own 
education  while  working  12  hours  or  more  a  day  at  harder 
work  than  the  steel  employee  with  his  modern  automatic 
machinery,  is  perhaps  ever  called  upon  to  do.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  well-known  type  of  modern  sentimental 
writer  cotdd  have  become  most  pessimistically  eloquent  over 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       231 

the  probable  fate  of  a  young  Lincoln  splitting  rails  14  hours 
a  day  with  a  16  pound  maul  and  then  walking  20  miles  to 
borrow  a  single  book  which  he  had  to  read  before  an  open 
fire  for  the  lack  of  money  to  buy  candles. 

Any  argument  on  this  basis,  however,  merely  resolves 
itself  into  the  question  of  the  personal  point  of  view  of  the 
arguer.  The  man  who  has  achieved,  or  is  capable  of  achiev- 
ing, under  such  circumstances  is  temperamentally  prone  to 
glorify  hard  work  and  to  think  of  its  results  chiefly  in  terms 
of  Lincolns  and  Schwabs  and  Edisons.  The  man  who  him- 
self has  not,  and  probably  could  not,  achieve  under  such 
conditions  inherently  shrinks  from  the  rigors  of  such  a  sys- 
tem and  is  temperamentally  impelled  to  be  most  impressed 
with  its  failures. 

But  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  question  of  long  hours  of 
work  from  the  social  point  of  view,  cannot  be  satisfactorily 
argued  on  an  individual  basis,  which  inevitably  consists 
of  sentimentalizing  over  isolated  instances  either  of  men 
who  have  stayed  down  imder  its  strenuous  demands  or  of  men 
who  have  found  in  strenuous  necessity  a  specially  valuable 
schooling  for  marked  accomplishment.  From  the  social 
point  of  view,  it  is  the  average  results  and  the  general  effect 
on  the  whole  social  body  which  are  most  important.  These 
the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  discuss  or  mention. 

In  discussing  any  such  broad  question  it  is  of  course 
necessary  to  begin  with  a  clear  understanding  of  just  what 
the  discussion  does  and  does  not  involve. 

The  seven  day  week  is  not  being  here  discussed. 

Practically  all  farming  is  necessarily  on  a  seven  day  a 
week  basis.  The  public  demands  that  drug  and  many  other 
retail  stores  stay  open,  that  milk  be  delivered  and  police 
and  fire  protection  be  afforded  seven  days  a  week.  More- 
over in  such  cases  it  is  hardly  possible  to  employ  special 
help  for  Sunday  so  that  seven  day  operation  means  seven 
day  work  by  the  individual  worker.  The  public  demands 
that  trains  and  street  cars  be  run  seven  days  a  week.  Phys- 
ical laws  necessitate  that  blast  furnace  departments  be 


232     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

operated  continuously.  In  both  these  cases  however,  it  is 
possible  to  employ  special  "swing  crews"  so  that  seven  day 
operation  can  be  maintained  with  a  six  day  working  schedule 
for  the  individual  worker.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  condemn 
seven  day  work  in  stronger  language  than  the  officials  of 
the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  have  condemned  it  and  they 
state  categorically  that  with  the  exception  of  the  war  period 
their  employees  have  all  been  for  years  on  a  six  or  less  than 
six  day  schedule.  All  the  detailed  government  statistics 
on  the  subject  from  1913  on,,  substantiate  this  statement. 
To  the  extent  that  seven  day  work  exists  in  the  rest  of  the 
industry,  no  matter  how  small  the  actual  nimiber  of  workers 
involved,  and  irrespective  of  the  attitude  of  the  worker 
himself,  the  fact  that  the  seven  day  schedule  is  both  in- 
herently unnecessary  and  unsocial  leaves  it  without  defense. 

Long  hours  which  unduly  exhaust  or  impair  the  health 
of  the  worker  are  not  being  here  discussed. 

A  12-hour  working  day  is  not  in  itself  unduly  exhausting 
or  detrimental  to  health.  Our  10,000,000  farmers  who 
consistently  work  these  or  longer  hours  are  notoriously 
about  the  healthiest  class  in  the  population.  All  Americans, 
in  fact  all  the  world,  up  to  a  generation  ago  worked  such 
hours.  Eight  hours  at  many  kinds  of  work  are  more  ex- 
hausting and  detrimental  to  health  than  12  hours  at  many 
others.  The  really  hard  work  in  the  steel  industry  has  for 
years  been  on  an  eight-hour  schedule  and  five  days  a  week ; 
and  it  is  generally  considered  in  the  industry  that  such  jobs 
at  eight  hours  are  harder  than  the  12-hour  jobs  both  in 
themselves  and  because  the  12-hour  workers  are  seldom 
actually  working  more  than  half  of  the  hours  on  duty. 
Government  agencies  have  been  active  for  years,  and  very 
properly  so,  in  regulating  hours  or  other  working  conditions 
which  are  detrimental  to  the  health  or  longevity  of  workers. 
They  have  reduced  the  hours  in  copper  mines  to  6  a  day; 
they  have  regulated  work  in  brass  foundries;  in  industries 
using  sulphur  and  in  many  other  special  industries.  Various 
government  studies  of  working  conditions  in  the  steel  in- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       233 

dustry  have  already  been  discussed  in  the  present  analysis. 
Their  detailed  reports  have  been  quoted  to  show  that  steel 
workers  are  only  subject  to  extreme  heat  for  a  few  minutes 
at  a  time — generally  about  i  minute  to  7  minutes — inter- 
mittently, and  generally  for  a  total  time  of  only  some  20 
minutes  to  2  hours  out  of  the  12  hours.  These  government 
reports  show  by  detailed  time  studies  that  the  12-hour 
worker  only  actually  works  some  5  to  7  hours  out  of  the  12. 
Steel  work  in  the  12-hour  departments  is  particularly 
emphasized  as  "necessarily  of  rather  leisurely  character." 
The  Interchurch  Report  throughout  insists  on  making  a 
distinction  between  the  high  skilled  American  steel  worker 
and  the  low  skilled  immigrant  worker.    It  says  (page  11): 

"Rates  of  pay  and  other  principal  conditions  were  based  on  what  was 
accepted  by  common  labor;  the  unskilled  and  semi-skilled  force  was 
largely  immigrant  labor. ' ' 

"The  amounts  earned  by  the  low  skilled  (the  bulk  of  the  labor)  are 
determined  chiefly  by  the  extraordinarily  long  hours"  (page  90),  etc., 
etc. 

Moreover  the  fact  that  it  insists  (page  13)  that : 

"Skilled  steel  labor  was  paid  wages  disproportionate  to  the  earnings 
of  the  other  two  thirds,  thus  binding  the  skilled  class  to  the  companies  " 

and 

"The  twelve  hour  day  made  any  attempt  at  'Americanization'  or 
other  civic  or  individual  development  for  one  half  all  immigrant  steel 
workers  arithmetically  impossible"  (page  12)  and 

"Americanization  of  the  steel  workers  cannot  take  place  while  the 
12-hour  day  persists"  (page  84). 

— all  make  it  plain  that  the  Interchurch  Report  is  not 
discussing  the  12-hour  day  and  the  American  worker  but 
the  12-hour  day  and  the  Americanization  of  the  immigrant 
worker. 

What  is  here  discussed  then,  is  whether  or  not  12  hours  on 
duty — which   of  cotirse  brings   12-hour  pay — necessarily 


234    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

means  that  "Americanization  of  the  steel  worker  cannot 
take  place"  or  whether  as  a  matter  of  fact  higher  pay  may 
not  be  one  very  practical  road  to  the  Americanization  of  the 
worker  and  his  family. 

America  is  a  nation  of  immigrants  and  we  have  had 
much  experience  with  immigrants  and  their  Americaniza- 
tion. Our  immigrant  forefathers  created  out  of  a  wilderness 
the  America  and  Americanism  of  today,  including  American 
education,  ideals,  social  system  and  all.  How  did  they  do 
it,  by  working  hard  and  long  for  bigger  returns  or  through 
leisure?  To  the  America  of  today  have  come,  particularly 
in  the  last  generation,  hosts  of  other  immigrants.  They  have 
come  largely  from  different  races  than  our  forefathers  and 
their  Americanization  has  involved  different  problems — 
those  of  adopting  and  absorbing  Americanism  rather  than 
of  creating  it.  Large  proportions  of  such  immigrants,  and 
particularly  their  children,  have  become  the  best  kind  of 
Americans — ^in  education,  in  ideals,  in  every  social  sense. 
How,  not  as  a  matter  of  theory  and  sentimentalism,  but  as  a 
matter  of  practical  fact,  have  they  chiefly  or  most  effectively 
done  this — through  long,  hard  work  or  through  leisure  ? 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  American  standards 
of  living  are  distinctly  an  achievement.  It  is  equally  true, 
and  cannot  be  over  emphasized,  that  all  advanced  social 
standards  are  achievements.  Many  such  advanced  social 
standards  have  been  so  largely  achieved  in  America  today 
that  it  is  easy  to  take  them  for  granted  as  things  that  have 
always  existed  and  will  go  on  existing  irrespectively.  The 
war,  however,  and  many  events  in  connection  with  it,  plainly 
showed  that  even  such  "  always-taken-f or-granted  "  stand- 
ards of  modern  social  advancements  as  enough  food  to  sus- 
tain life,  the  most  ordinary  liberty  of  individual  action,  the 
very  principles  of  individual  freedom  and  right,  far  from 
being  inherent,  have  required  a  world  struggle  to  reestab- 
lish. 

The  shorter  working  day  is  in  no  sense  inherent  or  to  be 
merely  taken  for  granted  as  something  that  exists  irre- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       235 

spective  of  other  circumstances.  It  is  distinctly  an  achieve- 
ment and  one  of  the  most  recent  and  advanced 
achievements  of  modem  social  life,  and  its  possible  existence 
absolutely  depends  on  the  prior  establishment  of  other  facts 
and  circumstances. 

One  of  the  chief  characteristics  on  which  Americans  have 
always  prided  themselves,  has  been  their  national  energy 
which  at  least  for  all  the  earlier  years  of  national  history 
meant  a  willingness  and  habit  on  the  part  of  the  whole 
people  to  work  hard  and  long. 

When  Alexander  Hamilton  first  advocated  governmental 
encotiragement  of  American  industry  in  order  that  Ameri- 
cans might  enjoy  more  and  cheaper  manufactured  commodi- 
ties, and  when  Washington  signed  the  first  American  pro- 
tective tariff  to  encourage  American  industry,  one  of  the 
stated  reasons  was  to  make  American  women  and  children 
more  economically  productive.* 

Howe  invented  the  sewing  machine  after  a  12  hour  day's 
work  in  a  machine  shop  in  Cambridge.  Peter  Cooper  did 
the  research  work  that  laid  the  foundations  of  American 
railroading  after  12  hours  in  a  glue  factory,  and  Fulton  and 
Morse  and  McCormack  made  other  basic  mechanical  in- 
ventions on  which  modern  industrial  and  social  life  is  built, 
under  similar  conditions. 

In  other  words,  American  energy  in  other  generations 
meant  not  only  a  universal  12  hour  or  longer  working  day  for 
men,  women  and  children  but  it  meant  that  much  of  the 
inventive  and  other  special  progress  was  achieved  through 
hours  of  work  beyond  these. 

Through  inventions  and  improvements  in  machinery  and 
through  better  methods  of  combining  individual  skill  with 
that  machinery,  the  average  American  today  produces 
about  three  times  as  much  as  the  average  individual  could 
produce  in  1850  which  immense  extra  margin  of  production 

'  This  fact  which  is  reptignaxit  to  oxir  social  standards  of  today  is 
worth  particular  notice  as  evidence  of  how  far  from  inherent  and  rnerely 
to  be  taken  for  granted  otur  modern  American  standards  actually  are. 


236    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

has  been  used  in  eliminating  child  labor  and  the  hardest  part 
of  women's  labor,  in  improving  standards  of  living  and 
finally  in  shortening  the  working  day.  But  these  modern 
standards  of  living  and  working  hours  and  other  standards 
generally  referred  to  as  American,  have  plainly  been  possible 
only  because  former  generations  of  Americans  built  up, 
by  long  hard  working  hours  and  foresight  and  sacrifice,  the 
margin  of  production  which  could  be  used  as  capital  to 
create  more  and  better  machinery  and  the  better  methods 
which  have  brought  about  the  greater  productivity  which 
has  made  the  modem  American  standards  of  living  and 
leisure  possible. 

Moreover,  though  of  course  there  are  many  isolated 
exceptions,  the  average  American  individual  and  family 
have  progressed  exactly  as  the  nation  has  progressed. 
Either  through  hard  work  and  sacrifice  and  foresight,  a 
margin  of  capital  is  built  up,  the  use  of  which  in  farming  or 
trade  is  added  to  personal  energy,  or  by  special  education 
or  in  some  other  way,  some  type  of  extra  ability  or  efficiency 
is  acquired  and  added  to  personal  energy  to  command  the 
living  standards  and  the  leisure  which  the  average  individ- 
ual American  enjoys. 

But  for  generations  now  this  normal  American  develop- 
ment has  been  complicated  by  the  fact  that  increasing 
niunbers  of  immigrants  have  come  into  our  national,  in- 
dustrial and  social  life.  These  immigrants  have  seldom  had 
either  the  heredity  or  education  for  measuring  up  to  Ameri- 
can standards  of  individual  productivity  which  are  neces- 
sary to  command  American  standards  of  living  and  leisure 
and  they  have  seldom  had  any  reserves  of  capital  to  use  to 
increase  their  individual  productivity  ability. 

In  earlier  years  the  great  bulk  of  such  immigrants  went 
directly  to  the  land  and  there  in  general  through  exactly  the 
same  methods  of  long  hard  work  with  which  Americans  of 
earlier  generations  accomplished  the  same  results,  they 
built  up  the  margins  of  capital,  consisting  of  land  and  tools 
and  money  in  the  bank,  which  made  it  possible  for  them,  in 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       237 

their  later  years,  to  enjoy  at  least  higher  standards  of  living 
and  leisiire  than  they  had  ever  known  or  could  have 
achieved  in  the  countries  from  which  they  came;  and  which 
made  it  possible  for  them  to  give  their  children,  thru  that 
capital  and  the  special  educational  advantages  it  made 
possible,  every  chance  for  full  American  standards  of  living 
and  leisure. 

In  later  years  the  great  mass  of  immigrants  have  been 
going,  not  to  the  land  but  into  commercial  and  industrial 
centers.  No  American  who  has  ever  paid  the  least  atten- 
tion to  the  type  of  names  across  the  store  fronts  along  the 
main  as  well  as  the  side  streets  of  almost  any  American  city 
can  fail  to  realize  that  the  immigrant  has  had  his  full  share 
of  American  commercial  success.  As  a  matter  of  fact  in  a 
number  of  prominent  lines  of  retailing,  in  the  tremendous 
business  of  public  entertainment  and  in  certain  lines  of 
manufacturing,  the  more  recent  American  dominates  the 
entire  business,  and  he  has  become  an  important  factor  in 
almost  every  commercial  field. 

Moreover  there  are  probably  few  Americans  who  have 
not  had  the  opportunity  to  observe  personally  the  means 
by  which  such  immigrants  succeed,^how,  beginning  with  a 
vegetable  wagon  or  a  corner  stand  or  in  some  other  small 
way,  they  build  their  success  bigger  and  bigger  through 
inordinately  long  hours  of  work  and  through  accepting 
standards  of  living  which  makes  possible  a  maximum  saving 
to  be  combined  as  ivLrther  capital  with  their  hard  work  to 
make  that  work  still  more  productive. 

Both  on  the  farm  and  in  commerce  then,  great  classes  of 
immigrants,  initially  lacking  either  the  capital  or  special 
personal  efficiency  to  individually  produce  an  American 
standard  of  living  in  an  American  standard  of  hours,  have 
compensated  for  their  inherent  handicap  by  initially 
accepting  less  than  the  American  standard  of  living  and 
working  more  than  the  American  standard  of  hours  and  by 
this  means  have  built  up  a  margin  of  capital  and  acquired  a 
special   ability   which   have  later  made  themselves  and 


238     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

particularly  their  children  ivHl  productive,  and  later  social, 
factors  according  to  full  American  standards. 

The  great  majority  of  immigrants  who  have  gone  into 
industrial  work,  however,  have  had  a  very  different  and  in 
general  much  less  favorable  experience.  There  are  doubt- 
less a  number  of  reasons  for  this.  The  older  established 
industries  are  operated  on  a  large  scale  with  large  capital- 
ization. There  is  far  less  chance  therefore  to  begin  with  a 
few  dollars  and  the  energy  of  the  worker's  own  family  and 
perhaps  a  few  friends  as  has  been  possible  in  retail  and 
commercial  lines  and  in  the  clothing  industry. 

But  no  careful  analysis  can  fail  to  reveal  one  very  signi- 
ficant fact  in  connection  with  the  immigrant  worker  in 
industry  as  compared  with  the  immigrant  worker  in  farming 
or  commerce  and  that  is  the  fact  that  under  the  fixed  work- 
ing conditions  of  a  large  part  of  industry,  the  immigrant  is 
denied  the  opportunity  to  overcome  his  special  inherent 
handicaps — ^lack  of  special  individual  productive  ability — 
by  a  maximum  employment  of  his  single  biggest  asset — his 
willingness  to  work  hard  and  long  and  sacrifice  for  his 
future. 

For  when  the  immigrant  worker  goes  into  the  average 
American  industry,  he  is  automatically  barred  by  fixed 
standards  of  working  hours,  based  upon  supposed  standards 
of  individual  productive  ability  of  the  American  workers, 
from  compensating  for  his  own  less  individual  productive 
ability  by  harder  work.  Moreover  he  is  at  once  introduced 
into  an  atmosphere  in  which  any  ambition  to  achieve  Ameri'- 
can  standards  of  productivity,  and  consequently  to  achieve 
by  his  own  efforts  American  standards  of  living,  is  subject 
to  organized  discouragement  and  organized  propagation  of 
a  theory  that  shorter  hours  of  work  are  primary  and 
production  secondary. 

Considered  then  not  on  sentimentality  or  mere  isolated 
instances  but  on  the  real  facts  and  merits  of  the  case  the 
whole  question  of  the  Americanization  of  immigrant  labor 
resolves  itself  into  these  propositions : — 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       239 

Given  the  undisputed  fact  that  the  immigrant  worker 
generally  lacks  American  standards  of  industrial  efficiency 
which  handicap  him  in  competing  on  the  same  level  with 
American  labor  for  general  American  standards  of  living  and 
leisure,  can  the  immigrant  worker  advance  more  rapidly  and 
surely  to  full  American  standards  through  an  initial  econo- 
mic advancement  irrespective  of  American  standards  of 
hours,  or  by  being  artificially  limited  to  American  standards 
of  hours  in  the  hope  that  he  will  use  his  leisure  to  achieve  in 
some  other  way  other  American  standards? 

The  first  proposition  that  economic  advancement  is  a 
definite  and  direct  step  toward  other  forms  of  social  advance- 
ment, is  supported  not  only  by  all  the  conspicuous  facts  and 
experience  available  as  to  the  methods  by  which  American 
immigrant  workers  actually  do  advance,  but  by  all  general 
human  experience  as  to  the  invariable  method  of  all  himian 
advancement. 

The  cultural  supremacy  of  Athens  came  only  after  its 
acquisition  of  the  Delian  treasure  and  the  Laurium  silver 
mines  had  given  it  the  commercial  supremacy  of  the  ancient 
world.  The  Renaissance  was  the  foundation  of  modem 
cidtural  advance  of  all  western  civilization,  but  the  Renais- 
sance came  only  after  the  great  economic  advances  due  to 
the  development  of  East  Indian  trade  and  South  American 
gold  mines.  The  great  era  of  popular  education  in  western 
Europe  and  America  came  only  in  the  countries  and  only 
after  the  tremendous  economic  advancement  of  the  modem 
era  of  industrial  machinery.  Throughout  the  world  na- 
tional standards  of  education  and  living  conditions  are 
invariably  in  proportion  to  per  capita  wealth. 

As  regards  the  second  proposition  that  leisure  is  the 
foundation  stone  to  social  advancement  this  may  be  said. 
Socialists  and  all  other  radicals  can  appeal  to  the  individual 
or  mass  much  more  succesfully  in  proportion  as  the  in- 
dividual or  mass  is  still  economically  unsuccessful.  The 
immigrant  who  is  both  ignorant  in  regard  to  American  in- 
stitutions and  principles  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  economic 


240    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ladder  offers  the  most  promising  material  for  education  along 
radical  lines.  All  radical  leaders  therefore  may  hope  to 
derive  maximum  advantage  out  of  a  situation  in  which  im- 
migrant workers  are  prevented  by  arbitrarily  restricted 
hours  from  using  their  chief  asset  to  economic  advancement 
and  because  of  these  restricted  hours  have  ample  leisure  to 
receive  the  kind  of  education  to  which  they  are  most  sus- 
ceptible under  those  conditions.  Radical  leaders  therefore 
always  seek  to  emphasize  the  "  Leisure  for  education  and 
Americanization."  But  this  proposition  is  invariably 
supported  by  mere  sentimentalities  and  as  far  as  is  known 
cannot  be  supported  on  any  other  basis.  ^ 

Certainly  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  advance  one 
scintilla  of  evidence  to  show  that  in  the  many  industries 
where  the  immigrant's  hours  are  limited  to  8,  he  does  as  a 
matter  of  fact  use  his  extra  leisure  for  self-education  or  any 
other  effort  to  acquire  American  standards.  Nor  does  it 
even  advance  any  theory  to  show  why  he  may  be  expected 
to  do  this.  Instead  it  quite  characteristically  bases  its 
whole  conclusion  on  the  mere  assumption  that  the  im- 
migrant worker  would  do  this.  Moreover  the  Interchurch 
Report  does  not  seem  to  have  the  faintest  suspicion  that  all 
the  facts  and  experiences  as  to  how  human  progress  is,  and 

'  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that  the  affiliated  radical 
organizations,  of  which  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Worker  is  the  chief 
unit,  and  which  has  recently  been  given,  by  the  "Third  International, " 
the  leadership  in  the  American  radical  movement — taking  that  place 
from  the  I.  W.  W. — particularly  features  its  educational  eflforts  among 
the  workers.  The  head  of  this  "Educational  Committee ' '  is  Mr.  David 
Saposs,  named  by  the  Interchurch  Report  as  one  of  its  special  investiga- 
tors and  as  the  author  of  part  of  the  Second  Interchurch  Report.  Mr. 
George  Soule,  another  such  special  Interchurch  investigator  and  joint 
author  of  the  second  Interchurch  Report,  has  been  connected  with  this 
general  organization  and  his  wife  is  a  member  of  this  "Educational 
Committee."  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  is  featured  as  one  of  the  special 
lecturers  of  this  "Educational  Committee."  To  what  extent  such 
"educational"  efforts  have  succeeded  is  unknown,  and  whether  or  not 
they  contribute  towards  Americanization  of  course  depends  on  the 
definition  given  Americanism. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       241 

always  has  been,  actually  achieved  plainly  refute  its 
assumption. 

The  12  hour  day  in  the  steel  industry  represents  the  most 
conspicuous  opportunity  in  industry  for  the  immigrant 
worker  to  better  his  economic  standing  by  making  up  for 
his  inherent  handicaps  through  a  maximum  use  of  his 
greatest  asset.  Because  of  the  12  hotu*  day  the  immigrant 
steel  worker  covild  earn  $34.19  a  week  which,  according  to 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  statistics  already  frequently 
quoted,  was  about  the  average  wages  at  the  time  of  carpen- 
ters, cement  workers,  electric  wiremen,  sheet  metal  workers, 
linotype  operators,  railroad  machinists,  boiler  makers  and 
other  great  classes  of  American  skilled  labor.  In  other 
words  by  working  12  hours  a  day  in  the  steel  industry  the 
unskilled  immigrant  worker  was  on  practically  the  same 
economic  plane  as  the  average  skilled  American  worker  in 
other  industries,  which  meant  that  except  in  the  matter  of 
personal  leisure  he  had  available  the  same  standards  of  liv- 
ing for  himself  and  his  family  as  a  large  percentage  of 
American  skilled  workers. 

The  average  immigrant  worker,  however,  coming  from  a 
country  where  wheat  is  too  much  of  a  luxury  to  be  con- 
stmied  even  by  the  man  who  raises  it,  and  where  the  staple 
article  of  national  food  is  black  rye  bread — ^where  not  only 
the  whole  family  but  often  various  domestic  animals  live  in 
a  single  room,  naturally  and  generally  sees  less  need  for 
trying  to  maintain  American  standards  of  living  than  he 
does  for  saving  up  a  margin  of  capital  which  will  help  carry 
himself  and  his  family  still  further  on  the  road  to  economic 
and  ultimately  general  advancement. 

The  tendency  of  the  great  proportion  of  the  immigrant 
steel  workers  to  save  money  was  repeatedly  emphasized  in 
the  Senate  Hearings.  Mr.  Foster  in  his  book  The  Great 
Steel  Strike,  on  page  117,  says: 


"When  th^r  tried  to  foreclose  on  the  Church  mortgage,  he  (Father 
Kazinci)  promptly  laid  the  matter  before  his  heterogeneous  congr^a- 

16 


242     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

tion  of  (Slavic)  strikers  who  raised  the  necessary  $1200  before  leaving 
the  building  and  next  day  brought  in  several  hundred  dollars  more. " 


Again  the  fact  that  some  50,000  strikers,  mostly  unskilled 
foreigners,  could  support  themselves  and  their  families  for 
three  months '  'on  their  own  resources"  indicates  considerable 
prior  saving.  Finally  the  plain  fact  that  the  very  class  of 
workers  (immigrants)  who  have  so  conspicuously  shown  a 
tendency  to  go  into  fields  of  work  where  they  could  work 
long  hours  in  order  to  save  margins  of  capital,  have  gone  in 
far  greater  numbers  into  the  12  hour  steel  than  into  any 
other  industry,  and  stayed  in  it  in  spite  of  the  temptation 
of  ample  wages  for  much  shorter  hours  which  was  held  out 
to  them  during  the  war  by  other  industries,  raises  the  strong 
presumption  that  this  was  in  general  deliberately  done  for 
the  purpose  of  making  and  saving  this  extra  money. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  possible  to  trace  directly  the  social 
result  of  the  extra  money  made  and  saved  by  immigrant 
workers  in  the  steel  industry  as  it  is  possible  to  trace  directly 
the  social  result  of  money  saved  by  the  immigrant  who 
works  from  7  in  the  morning  till  10  at  night  building  up  his 
comer  fruit  stand  into  a  leading  fruit  and  confectionary  and 
ice  cream  parlor ;  or  as  it  is  to  trace  the  social  result  of  the 
savings  which  the  immigrant  worker  puts  into  a  vegetable 
patch,  which  by  long  hard  work  he  develops  into  one  of  the 
profitable  truck  farms  which  dot  the  outskirts  of  our  great 
cities.  It  is  obvious  on  every  side,  however,  that  foreign 
bom  citizens  are  multiplying  every  type  of  small  business 
venture,  all  of  which  require  capital  which  the  immigrant 
does  not  possess  when  he  comes  to  the  country.  The  fact 
that  the  12  hour  day  in  the  steel  industry  has  long 
offered  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  opportunity  in  the 
whole  country  for  the  immigrant  without  any  asset  but  his 
willingness  to  work  to  earn  and  save  most  quickly  the  few 
hundred  dollars  with  which  such  workers  are  able  to  start 
in  some  little  business  of  their  own,  makes  it  reasonable  to 
presume  that  the  steel  industry  has  contributed  more  than 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       243 

its  share  to  the  capital  which  has  started  tens  of  thousands 
of  our  immigrants  on  the  road  of  steady  economic  advance- 
ment which  according  to  all  experience  is  the  most  direct 
and  sure  road  to  full  Americanization. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  years  before  the 
present  Americanization  movement,  as  such,  had  ever 
come  to  public  notice  the  steel  companies  were  spending 
tens  of  millions  of  dollars  in  an  Americanization  movement 
of  their  own  among  their  immigrant  workers.  This  move- 
ment offers  the  worker  himself  easy  and  special  educational 
advantages,  far  beyond  those  the  12  hour  working  earlier 
American  ever  had  available.  But  it  has  also  made  an  even 
more  direct  and  intensive  effort  to  reach  the  children  of 
such  workers  who,  according  to  all  sociological  authorities, 
offer  the  most  fertile  field  for  Americanization  not  only  as  it 
will  affect  the  next  generation  but  for  its  reaction  on  the 
immigrant  parents  themselves. 

There  are  of  course  certain  types  of  people  who  are 
temperamentally  impelled  to  judge  the  social  results  of  an 
industry  or  of  any  other  system  chiefly  by  its  effect  on  the 
"small  impoverished,"  or  otherwise  disaffected  minority 
of  which  few  human  institutions,  irrespective  of  other 
conditions,  are  free. 

There  may  be  many  other  Americans  who  have  the  same 
faith  as  the  Interchurch  investigators  that  if  the  immigrant 
worker  was  arbitrarily  handicapped  in  the  steel  industry, 
as  he  is  in  many  other  industries,  from  taking  the  same  road 
to  Americanization  that  practically  all  immigrants  have 
taken, — through  first  achieving  their  own  economic  advance- 
ment,— and  if  American  standards  of  leisure  were  made 
compulsory ;  that  such  a  free  gift  of  what  the  American  people 
themselves  have  had  to  earn  through  generations  of  hard 
work  and  sacrifice  and  foresight,  would  inspire  such  immi- 
grants to  acquire  more  rapidly  full  American  standards  of 
efficiency  and  responsibility. 

Various  other  points  of  view  are  possible  and  different 
shades  of  view  inevitable,  for  the  problem  of  the  American- 


244    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ization  of  the  immigrant  worker  is  undoubtedly  broad  and 
complicated  and  many  of  its  phases  necessarily  involve 
matters  of  opinion. 

Nevertheless,  the  fact  cannot  be  disputed  that  long  hard 
work  which  brought  correspondingly  big  returns,  was 
fundamentally  the  basis  on  which  all  modern  American 
standards  of  living  were  built  and  through  which  alone  they 
were  made  possible.  It  cannot  be  disputed  that  the  12 
hour  day  in  the  steel  industry  offers  exactly  the  same  op- 
portunity today  which  earlier  Americans  all  used  to  make 
possible  modern  American  ideals  and  which  the  immigrant 
worker  had  consistently  used  in  other  fields  to  make  pos- 
sible his  enjoyment  of  full  American  standards.  The  12 
hour  day  is  not  a  "barbarism  without  valid  excuse"  which 
is  inconsistent  with  "the  Americanization  of  the  steel 
worker."  On  the  contrary  it  offers  one  type  of  special  op- 
portunity, and  is  being  widely  used  as  an  opportunity, 
towards  Americanization. 

Whether  or  not  a  different  opportunity  or  method  might 
be  better  may  be  open  to  question.  But  there  is  little  doubt 
that  that  question  cannot  be  answered  merely  on  the  opin- 
ion of  an  Interchurch  Report  which  entirely  fails  to  grasp 
its  real  merits.  Nor  can  that  question  be  turned  over  for 
answer  to  Foster,  the  radical  and  his  I.  W.  W.  partisans 
or  to  Fitzpatrick  or  other  members  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  who 
are  definitely  committed  by  self-interest  to  one  side  and  who 
under  no  circumstances  would  have  to,  or  would  be  willing 
to,  bear  the  responsibility  of  their  decision. 

Judge  Gary  took  the  initiative  before  the  Senate  investi- 
gation committee  of  personally  suggesting  that  the  best 
method  of  solving  the  great  social  problems  that  are  in- 
herent in  industry  would  be  to  put  at  least  the  great  basic 
industries  under  the  supervision  of  a  governmental  body  simi- 
lar to  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission  which  could 
go  into  such  subjects  impartially  and  make  decisions  which 
were  intelligent  and  based  on  real  public  policy.  (Senate 
Hearings,  Part  I,  page  216.) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       245 

In  March,  192 1,  when  the  chief  interest  of  the  steel 
worker  was  in  keeping  his  job  and  there  was  no  question  of 
any  labor  troubles,  Judge  Gary  again  took  the  initiative  in 
suggesting  in  an  official  pubHc  statement,  that  the  Steel 
Corporation  would  welcome  the  assistance  of  a  properly 
constituted  governmental  commission  as  a  means  of  solving 
the  social  problems  of  the  steel  industry  on  a  basis  of  real 
public  policy. 

If  public  opinion  feels,  or  shall  come  to  feel,  that  the  12 
hour  day  constitutes  a  social  problem,  surely  such  a  means 
of  solution  promises  more  truly  social  results  than  a  blind 
yielding  to  organized  agitation  and  propaganda  which  will 
put  the  solution  in  the  hands  of  irresponsible,  self-interested 
professional  labor  leaders. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

TRADE  UNION  COLLECTIVE   BARGAINING, 

On  page  15  and  again  on  page  144  the  Interchurch  Report 
says, 

"The  organizing  campaign  .  .  .  and  the  strike  were  for  the  pur- 
pose of  forcing  a  conference  in  an  industry  where  no  means  of  conference 
existed;  this  specific  conference  to  set  up  trade  union  collective  bargaining. " 

It  says  on  page  15, 

"15.  Causes  of  defeat  (of  the  strike)  .  .  .  lay  in  the  organization 
and  leadership  not  so  much  of  the  strike  itself  as  of  the  American  labor 
movement. " 

"16.  The  immigrant  steel  worker  was  led  to  expect  more  from  the  24 
International  Unions  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  conducting 
the  strike  than  they,  through  indifference,  selfishness  or  narrow  habit 
were  willing  to  give. " 

It  insists  on  page  35 : 

"That  the  control  of  the  movement  to  organize  the  steel  industry, 
vested  in  24  A.  F.  of  L.  trade  unions,  was  such  that  Mr.  Foster's  acts 
were  perforce  in  harmony  with  old  line  unionism. " 

On  page  158  in  discussing  Foster's  activities  and  known 
"boring  from  within"  tactics  in  the  strike,  it  says: 

"It  (boring  from  within)  does  mean  putting  inside  the  trade  unions 
radically  minded  men  who  will  make  more  trade  unionists.  It  does 
involve  the  possibility  that  after  all  the  unorganized  are  gathered  into 

246 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       247 

the  old  line  trade  union.5,  these  radical  minded  organizers  may  convert 
the  trade  tmions,  if  they  can.     That  is  the  trade  tmions'  lookout. " 

It  doubtless  has  already  been  made  sufficiently  clear  that 
in  the  attempt  to  "organize"  the  steel  industry  which  led 
up  to  the  1 91 9  steel  strike,  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered 
were  so  clearly  recognized  by  the  strike  leaders,  yet  the 
prize  of  victory  would  have  been  so  great,  that  the  Labor 
Movement  decided  to  put  its  united  strength — of  both  old 
line  unions  and  radical  organizations — into  the  effort.  In 
apportioning  the  leadership  accordingly,  and  for  obvious 
strategic  reasons,  general  control  was  vested  in  the  hands  of 
"24  old  line  trade  unions"  and  the  active  management  put 
in  the  hands  of  the  radical,  Foster,  with  each  side  constantly 
working  for  its  partisan  advantage  as  well  as  for  general 
victory.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  its  insistence  in  its  "Con- 
clusions" in  the  beginning  of  the  book  that  the  movement 
was  entirely  in  the  control  of  "old  fashioned  trade  union- 
ism"— that  as  a  matter  of  fact  "the  whole  strike  seemed 
extraordinarily  old  fashioned" — that  Foster  was  working 
along  old  fashioned  trade  union  lines — there  is  no  question, 
in  view  of  the  quotations  above  and  all  the  general  evidence 
through  the  last  two  chapters  of  the  book,  that  the  Inter- 
church  Report  clearly  recognized  this  dual  nature  of  the  con- 
trol and  aims,  and  distinctly  sympathized  with  the  tactics, 
leadership,  and  aims  of  the  radical  faction. 

Thus  when  the  Interchurch  Report — except  for  some  of 
the  generalizations  in  the  entirely  separate  and  afterwards 
added    "Findings"     and    "Recommendations"*    argues 

'  On  page  17  at  the  end  of  its  Introduction,  there  is  incorporated 
among  a  great  many  other  Recommendations  two  very  brief  sections 
which  recommend  that  the  government  should:  "Devise  with  both 
sides  and  establish  an  adequate  plan  of  permanent  free  conference  to 
regulate  the  conduct  of  the  industry  in  the  future"  and  "continue  and 
make  nationwide  this  (the  Interchurch  Report)  inquiry  into  basic  condi- 
tions in  the  industry. ' '  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  government  just  had , 
through  the  Senate  Committee,  made  a  far  more  lengthy  and  detailed 
and  specific  examination  into  the  steel  strike  than  the  Interchurch 
Report,  which  arrived  at  opposite  conclusions,  which  investigation  and 


248    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

throughout  for  trade  union  collective  bargaining,  standard 
trade  union  collective  bargaining  is  plainly  at  least  the 
minimum  for  which  it  is  arguing. 

Quite  characteristically,  however,  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port does  not  argue  the  subject  of  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  on  its  merits  at  all.  Except  that  it  frequently 
insists  that  in  European  countries  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  is  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course  and  the  lack 
of  it  as  being  "industrially  extraordinarily  old  fashioned," 
it  entirely  assumes  and  takes  for  granted  the  one-sidedness 
of  what  was  recognized  by  common  consent  as  the  chief 
issue  in  the  whole  steel  strike. 

The  fact  that  Bishop  McConnell,  Chairman  of  the  Inter- 
church Commission  of  Inquiry,  in  one  of  his  recently  pub- 
lished works  which  will  be  referred  to  later  and  other  men 
connected  with  the  Interchurch  investigation  in  other 
published  works  have  so  much  to  say  about  English  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  and  the  fact  that  Foster  as  the 


conclusions  the  Interchurch  Report  condemns,  this  recommendation 
seems  rather  puzzling  on  its  face.  The  strategy  of  such  a  recommenda- 
tion is  discussed  in  greater  detail  later  but  it  should  be  indicated  at  this 
point  that  strike  leaders'  strategy  is  frequently  first  to  appeal  to  the 
government  to  give  them  just  what  they  want  but  which  they  doubt- 
less know  in  advance  the  government  will  not  give  them,  after  which 
they  loudly  proclaim  that  so  long  as  the  government  refuses  to  do  what 
they  want  for  them,  they  have  to  do  it  for  themselves.  The  Interchurch 
Report  follows  this  strategy  precisely.  At  the  beginning  of  Volume  I 
it  asks  in  effect  that  the  government  repudiate  its  own  investigation  and 
asks  specifically  that  the  government  act  on  the  Interchurch  investiga- 
tion and  recommendations.  In  its  second  volume  a  year  later  on  pages 
327  to  330  the  Interchurch  Report  emphasizes  that  this  unstressed 
7th  sub-section  of  its  19th  recommendation  was  the  principal  recom- 
mendation of  the  entire  Report,  and  as  the  government  did  not  repudi- 
ate its  own  investigation  and  act  on  this  recommendation  of  the 
Interchurch  Report,  ths  Interchurch  Report  here  emphasizes  and  re- 
peats that: 

"The  government  as  much  as  the  Steel  Corporation  is  to  blame  and 
again  the  Corporation  and  the  government  have  seen  fit  to  leave  the 
field  of  reform  to  the  Trade  Unions. " 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       249 

climax  of  his  Great  Steel  Strike  sets  up  the  English  labor 
unions  as  the  model  for  American  radicalism,  makes 
this  frequent  reference  of  the  Interchurch  Report  to 
English  trade  union  collective  bargaining  as  a  reason  for 
American  trade  union  collective  bargaining  extremely 
interesting. 

This  argument  is  advanced  by  the  Interchurch  Report 
in  several  places  but  is  most  definitely  stated  on  page  41  by  a 
quotation  from  the  London  Times  that — 

"They  (American  employers)  have  been  apt  to  compare  with  some 
complacency  their  own  relations  with  labor  to  those  existing  in  this 
coimtry  (England)  and  to  attribute  their  comparative  immunity  from 
labor  troubles  to  the  superior  atmosphere  of  the  United  States  or  to 
their  own  superior  management.  It  is  really  due  to  the  simple  fact  that 
the  Labor  Movement  in  the  United  States  is  historically  a  good  many  years 
behind  our  own.  But  it  will  infallibly  tread  the  same  broad  course  .  .  . 
and  to  resist  the  inevitable  is  a  great  mistake. " 

That  there  are  two  sides  to  the  argument  in  regard  to  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  and  trade  unionism  may  be  admitted.  But  that 
these  particular  arguments — that  America  has  less  labor 
trouble  because  we  haven't  yet  got  much  of  * '  Labor  Move- 
ment," and  that  the  Labor  Movement  is  inevitable  and  it  is 
a  "great  mistake  to  resist  the  inevitable" — constitute  valid 
and  sufficient  reasons  why  American  industry  and  Ameri- 
can public  opinion  should  unquestioningly  embrace  the 
"Labor  Movement"  and  its  "trade  union  collective  bar- 
gaining," is  a  proposition  that  at  least  a  great  many 
Americans  very  definitely  refuse  to  accept. 

The  expressed  reason  advanced  by  Judge  Gary  for  oppos- 
ing trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry 
was  that  the  steel  industry  and  its  workers  themselves 
preferred  the  Open  Shop. 

Herbert  Hoover  says,  ^ 

"  The  principle  of  individual  freedom  requires  the  Open  Shop. " 
'  (Open  Shop  Encyclopedia,  page  278). 


250    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Cardinal  Gibbons  says,  (ibid.,  page  276) 

"The  right  of  a  non-union  laborer  to  make  his  own  contract  freely, 
and  perform  it  without  hindrance,  is  so  essential  to  civil  liberty  that  it 
must  be  defended  by  the  whole  power  of  the  government. " 

Bishop  McCabe  (Methodist)  says,  (ibid.,  page  276) 

"  I  want  to  state  the  attitude  of  the  church  and  this  statement  is  offi- 
cial. We  are  opposed  to  having  a  small  percentage  of  laboring  men  run 
the  entire  laboring  class  in  a  high  handed  and  authoritative  manner  .  .  . 
it  is  an  imposition  for  a  few  men  to  say,  'Join  our  union  or  you  cannot 
work.  .  .  .     As  now  constituted  labor  unions  cannot  long  stand."' 

Archbishop  Ireland  says,  {ibid.,  page  276) 

"Labor  unions  .  .  .  cannot  be  tolerated  if  they  interfere  with  the 
general  liberty  of  non-union  men  who  have  a  right  to  work  in  or  outside 
of  unions  as  they  please  ...  it  is  wrong  in  the  labor  imions  to  limit  the 
output  of  work  on  the  part  of  its  members.  The  members  themselves 
are  injured.    They  are  reduced  to  a  dead  level  of  inferiority." 

President  Eliot  of  Harvard  is  quoted  by  the  Citizens 
Alliance  of  Minneapolis  as  follows : 

"  Nothing  in  the  way  of  good  industrial  relations  is  to  be  expected  from 
organized  labor  as  represented  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  the  four  (railroad)  brotherhoods.  The  only  peace  which  can  come 
out  of  those  organizations  is  the  peace  of  an  absolute  domination,  not 
only  of  the  American  industries  but  of  the  government  itself. " 

Woodrow  Wilson,  as  an  economist  and  historian,  in  his 
last  Baccalaureate  sermon  at  Princeton,  said, 

"You  know  what  the  usual  standard  of  the  (union)  employee  is  in  our 
day.  It  is  to  give  as  little  as  he  may  for  his  wages.  Labor  is  standardized 
by  the  trades  imions  ...  no  one  is  suffered  to  do  more  than  the  average 
workman  can  do;  and  in  some  trades  and  handicrafts  no  one  is  suffered 
to  do  more  than  the  least  skillful  of  his  fellows  can  do  .  .  .  I  need 
not  point  out  how  economically  disastrous  such  a  regulation  of  labor  is 
.  .  .  the  labor  of  America  is  rapidly  becoming  unprofitable  under  its 
present  regulation  by  those  who  are  determined  to  reduce  it  to  a  mini- 
mum."    (Senate  Hearings,  page  98). 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       251 

President  Hadley  in  his  last  Baccalaureate  sermon  at  Yale 
(1921)  condemned  the  class  conscious  theories  of  organized 
labor  as  one  of  the  most  serious  menaces  to  Americanism. 

President  Harding  in  his  message  of  August  18,  1922,  to 
Congress  in  connection  with  the  coal  strike  said : 

"  These  conditions  cannot  remain  in  free  America.  If  free  men  cannot 
toil  according  to  their  own  lawful  choosing,  all  our  constitutional  guaran- 
tees bom  of  democracy  are  surrendered  to  mobocracy  and  the  freedom 
of  a  hundred  million  is  surrendered  to  the  small  minority  which  would 
have  no  law." 

Senator  Beveridge  has  said  in  regard  to  labor  forcing  over 
the  "Adamson"  law  on  threat  of  tying  up  the  railroads 
during  the  war : — 

"When  (labor)  organizations  by  threat  to  strangle  the  nation  can 
dictate  laws  for  their  own  advantage  at  the  expense  of  all  the  people, 
then  regular  government  by  all  for  the  good  of  all  is  annihilated. " 

— and  Chief  Justice  Taft,  Vice  President  Coolidge,  L3mian 
Abbott,  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  a  host  of  our  most  able 
and  public-minded  citizens  have  all  pointed  out  the  anti- 
social effects  of  many  of  the  principles  and  practises  of  the 
Labor  Movement  in  terms  equally  definite  and  specific. 

Again  Los  Angeles,  San  Francisco  and  Chicago  are  the 
three  great  American  communities  in  which  the  modem  labor 
movement  has  been  perhaps  longest  and  most  strongly  es- 
tablished, and  where,  therefore,  there  has  been  the  best 
opportunity  for  the  results  of  modern  organized  labor's 
theories  and  practises  to  have  been  thoroughly  demon- 
strated. In  all  these  three  conspicuous  cases — as  well  as  in 
many  other  communities  throughout  the  country — not 
merely  the  employer  but  the  whole  public  have  become  so 
utterly  disgusted  with  the  inefficient  un-American  results 
of  organized  labor  theories  and  practises — not  only  as  they 
have  affected  the  employers  and  the  public  but  as  they  have 
affected  the  workers  themselves — that  Los  Angeles  has, 


252    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

and  Chicago  and  San  Francisco  as  well  as  St.  Louis,  Boston 
and  many  other  American  communities  are  at  present 
conspicuously  engaged  in,  literally  running  the  "Labor 
Movement "  out  of  town. 

In  view  of  the  fact  therefore  that  the  four  last  Presi- 
dents of  the  United  States — the  Presidents  of  our  three 
great  universities  and  of  many  other  similar  institutions — 
the  leading  bishops  of  the  two  largest  religious  bodies  in  the 
country — and  perhaps  the  majority  of  other  unbiased,  in- 
formed public  leaders,  and  many  of  the  great  American 
communities  in  which  the  modern  labor  movement's 
theories  and  principles  have  been  most  thoroughly  tried  out, 
thus  sweepingly  condemn  the  whole  "Labor  Movement" 
as  at  present  constituted  or  at  least  many  of  its  notorious 
theories  and  practices,  it  seems  little  short  of  ridiculous 
for  any  body  of  investigators  merely  to  assume  that  the 
question  of  trade  union  collective  bargaining  has  only  one 
side  and,  irrespective  of  what  it  thinks  of  conditions  in  the 
steel  industry,  merely  assume  that  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  would  better  those  conditions. 

As  trade  union  collective  bargaining  does  not  exist  in  the 
steel  industry  and  the  question  of  whether  or  not  it  would 
improve  conditions  in  the  steel  industry  cannot  therefore 
be  determined  on  the  basis  of  the  results  in  the  industry 
itself,  it  is  necessary  to  judge  this  question  on  the  basis  of 
how  trade  union  collective  bargaining  has  affected  other 
industries,  and  then  to  determine  whether  or  not  there  are 
any  particular  reasons  why  it  should  operate  any  differently 
in  the  steel  industry. 

Certain  of  the  chief  complaints  against  the  theories  and 
practises  of  the  modern  labor  movement  are  emphasized  in 
the  foregoing  quotations.     They  are; 

First,  that  the  modern  labor  movement  systematically 
and  deliberately  attempts  to  decrease  production  which  not 
only  puts  an  immense  tax  on  the  public  but  reduces  the 
worker  himself  to  "a  dead  level  of  inferiority." 

Second,  that  the  modern  labor  movement  seeks  to  domi- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       253 

nate  absolutely,  for  its  own  group  interest,  all  conditions  of 
employment,  irrespective  of  the  interest  or  rights  of  the  in- 
dividual worker,  and  often  of  a  majority  of  the  workers  or  of 
the  industry  itself  or  of  the  public. 

Third,  that  the  modern  labor  movement  insists  on  operat- 
ing entirely  outside  the  laws  which  govern  all  other  human 
relations,  and  that,  through  its  lawless  disregard  of  con- 
tracts, its  lawless  factional  feuds,  and  its  lawless  and  arbi- 
trary insistence  on  enforcing  its  own  will,  wherever  pos- 
sible, irrespective  of  right  or  justice,  it  constitutes  not 
only  a  menace  to  all  orderly  operation  of  industry,  but  a 
menace  to  all  orderly  government. 

FIRST,  Decrease  of  production : 

It  is  a  basic  economic  axiom  that  the  more  of  all  kinds  of 
goods  there  are  produced,  the  more  there  will  be  for  the 
whole  country  to  have  and  use  and  enjoy,  and  therefore  the 
greater  will  be  general  prosperity  and  the  general  demand 
for  more  goods  and  consequently  the  greater  employment 
of  labor.  All  American  industrial  advancement  has  been 
based  on  and  has  demonstrated  this  principle.  Yet  or- 
ganized labor  insists  on  acting  entirely  on  the  opposite 
principle.  From  Mr.  Gompers  down,  its  leaders  with  per- 
haps a  very  few  notable  exceptions  have  blindly  insisted 
that  the  less  work  each  individual  does  the  more  work 
there  will  be  to  go  round,  and  "Organized  Labor"  has  con- 
sistently applied  this  principle  of  lessening  production  in 
every  industry  on  which  it  has  obtained  a  sufficient  hold 
to  put  it  into  effect. 

In  printing  newspapers  it  is  necessary  in  order  to  save 
time  to  have  an  advertisement  set  into  type  in  advance 
from  which  type  matrixes  or  "Mats"  are  made  and  fur- 
nished to  different  papers  all  over  the  country.  The 
unions,  which  almost  completely  dominate  the  printing 
field,  allow  the  use  of  "  mats  "  in  order  to  save  time  but  they 
arbitrarily  insist  that  after  using  the  "mat"  and  printing 
the  paper  from  it  that  each  such  advertisement  shall  be  set 
up  in  type   all  over  again  and  then  immediately  unset. 


254    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Throughout  the  country  some  16,000  printers  are  said  to  be 
thus  employed  in  merely  setting  up  type  that  is  never  used 
and  is  immediately  "knocked  down." 

In  the  Lincoln  Motor  Company,  400  of  certain  auto- 
mobile parts  were  polished  per  man  per  day  and  a  good 
man  could  polish  600  such  parts.  The  unions,  however, 
in  the  shops  they  control  arbitrarily  stipulate  that  no  man 
shall  polish  more  than  80  such  parts  per  day  in  a  day  of  the 
same  number  of  hours. 

An  average  molder  can  easily  set  75  to  80  "snapflasks" 
a  day.  Under  union  control  the  men  are  arbitrarily 
limited  to  setting  30  a  day. 

After  the  complete  union  domination  of  the  building 
trades  in  Cleveland,  because  of  labor  shortage  during  the 
war,  a  Cleveland  grand  jury  Investigation  reported  that 
carpenters,  paper  hangers,  painters,  brick  layers  and  practi- 
cally all  other  such  classes  of  workers,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  their  pay  had  been  doubled,  actually  did  only  about 
half  as  much  work  per  man  per  day. 

These  are  some  of  the  union  rules  which,  entirely  in  addi- 
tion to  the  encouraged  inefficiency  of  the  union  worker, 
add  to  the  cost  and  delay  of  building  jobs. 

Plumbers  and  steam  fitters  union  rules  provide  that  all 
pipe  up  to  23^  inches  must  be  hand  cut  on  the  job  instead 
of  being  machine  cut  at  a  great  saving  of  time  and  effort,  in 
the  shop. 

Ornamental  plaster  work  used  to  be  made  in  molds  in  the 
shop.  Union  rules  now  say  it  must  be  hand  done  on  the 
job. 

Spraying  machines  are  much  more  cheap  and  efficient 
for  painting  large  flat  surfaces.  Union  rules  do  not  allow 
their  use  and  will  not  allow  the  use  of  a  brush  more  than  4>^ 
inches  wide. 

Bath  tubs,  radiators  and  heavy  plumbing  can  not  be 
swung  up  to  the  proper  floor  by  derrick  to  save  time  and 
labor.  Union  rules  provide  that  skilled  plumbers  must  be 
paid  for  their  time  to  take  it  up  by  hand. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       255 

Such  union  rules  needlessly  decreasing  efficiency  and 
piling  up  costs  could  be  recited  literally  by  the  hundreds. 

These  cases  are  in  no  sense  exceptional.  On  the  con- 
trary they  are  typical  of  the  universal  experience  through- 
out all  industry  wherever  the  modern  Labor  Movement 
obtains  sufficient  control  to  put  its  fundamental  principles 
into  practice.  That  all  such  consistent  decreasing  of 
efficiency  and  piling  up  of  costs  have  raised  prices 
tremendously  to  the  whole  country  cannot  be  doubted. 

But  the  "Modem  Labor  Movement"  has  not  only  con- 
sistently lowered  current  standards  of  efficiency  in  produc- 
tion, but  has  fought  advanced  standards  or  methods  of 
production. 

It  is  an  obvious  fact  of  all  industrial  history  that  the  in- 
troduction of  new  or  better  machinery  not  only  cheapens 
prices  to  the  public  but  consequently  results  in  far  more 
employment  of  labor.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  commonest 
knowledge,  for  instance,  that  in  the  present  age  of  ma- 
chinery, every  trade  employs  thousands  of  workers  to  every 
one  worker  the  same  trade  employed  before  the  age  of 
machinery. 

Yet  in  1900  unions  condemned,  and  union  workers  struck 
against,  the  introduction  of  the  turret  lathe  which  has  since 
made  the  modern  automobile  industry  possible.  If  the 
unions  had  been  strong  enough  to  win  this  fight,  the  whole 
automobile  industry  on  its  present  scale  would  have  been 
impossible. 

Today  machinery  exists  which  could  materially  increase 
the  production  of  coal.  Yet  the  powerful  United  Mine 
Workers  Union  is  able  to  and  does  prohibit  its  introduction 
in  the  coal  industry.  It  costs  $2000  for  every  day  the  aver- 
age ocean-going  vessel  is  loading  in  American  ports.  Ma- 
chinery exists  which  could  greatly  facilitate  loading 
operations.  The  President  of  the  longshoremen's  union 
personally  approves  the  introduction  of  such  machinery 
but  the  "Labor  Movement"  prohibits  its  introduction  and 
handicaps  all  shipping  accordingly. 


256    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Again  such  instances  in  which  the  use  of  labor-saving 
machinery  to  increase  production  is  absolutely  prohibited 
by  the  "Labor  Movement"  wherever  it  has  had  the  power 
to  do  this,  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

As  indicative  of  how  such  theories  and  practices  ac- 
tually work  out,  "The  Constructor"  (June,  1922)  publishes 
a  study  covering  Wages,  Savings  Bank  Deposits,  Building 
Activity,  Rents,  and  Employment,  doubtless  the  chief  fac- 
tors indicative  of  local  prosperity  and  particularly  labor's 
prosperity,  in  a  large  group  of  "union"  cities  as  compared 
with  "open-shop"  cities.  The  conclusions  are  in  part  as 
follows : 

"Comparisons  between  cities  where  building  is  on  an  open  shop  basis 
and  on  a  closed  shop  basjs  reveals  56%  more  building,  34%  higher  money 
wages  and  18%  greater  average  savings  deposits  in  the  open  shop  towns, 
.  ,  .  with  126%  more  wwemployment  and  rent  increases  30  times  as 
great  in  the  closed  shop  cities." 

SECOND,  The  modern  labor  movement  seeks  to  dominate 
absolutely  for  its  own  group  interest  all  conditions  of  em- 
ployment, irrespective  of  the  interest  or  rights  of  the  individual 
worker  or  often  a  majority  of  the  workers,  or  of  the  industry 
itself  or  of  the  public. 

That  it  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  modern 
"Labor  Movement,"  and  its  consistent  practice  in  every 
industry  where  it  has  gained  sufficient  control  to  enforce 
its  principles,  to  force  all  workers,  irrespective  of  their  de- 
sires, into  the  union  and  to  insist  that  non-union  men  shall 
be  refused  employment,  is  so  consistently  admitted  by  the 
leaders  of  organized  labor  themselves  as  to  require  no  fur- 
ther proof.  Also  these  admissions  are  so  widely  known 
that  they  do  not  require  repetition. 

But  the  modern  labor  movement  today  goes  far  beyond 
this. 

New  York  City  is  what  is  called  a  "union  town"  just  as 
Chicago,  San  Francisco  and  St.  Louis  have  been  until 
recently  "union  towns."  There  is  at  present  writing  a 
Joint  Committee  of  the  New  York  Legislature  to  investigate 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       257 

housing  conditions  (Lockwood  Committee)  investigating 
certain  union  conditions  in  New  York  City.  This  legisla- 
tive committee  has  already  discovered  and  published  a  host 
of  such  organized  labor  practices  as  the  following: 

Certain  carpenters  were  expelled  from  Carpenters'  Union 
Local  1456  for  criticizing  Brindell,  the  New  York  labor 
leader  who  is  now  in  state  prison  for  extortion.  Being  ex- 
pelled from  the  New  York  union  they  could  not  join  the 
union  in  any  other  town  or  get  work  in  any ' '  union  town ' '  in 
America.  And  as  this  particular  union  is  very  powerful 
this  meant  most  of  the  country. 

Although  there  are  from  12,000  to  15,000  electric  work- 
ers living  in  New  York  City,  the  Electrical  Workers' 
Union  has  arbitrarily  limited  its  membership  to  3800  and 
will  not  admit  any  of  these  other  New  York  electrical 
workers  into  its  union  or  allow  them  to  work  in  New  York 
except,  under  "permits"  to  work  from  week  to  week  at  its 
pleasure  on  the  payment  of  $2.50  a  week  to  the  union. 

In  October,  1920,  the  Plumber's  Union  "closed  its  books" 
admitting  no  new  members  except  the  son  or  brother  of  men 
who  were  members  on  that  date.  Not  only  has  it  been 
impossible,  therefore,  for  two  years,  for  any  plumber  to 
come  from  outside  communities  into  New  York,  even 
though  they  were  union  members  in  these  outside  communi- 
ties, and  work  at  their  trade,  but  the  Committee  brought 
out  that  New  York  Plumbers'  apprentices  who  had  spent 
four  and  five  years  working  up  in  their  trade  were  pre* 
vented  from  joining  the  union  at  the  end  of  their  apprentice- 
ship and  so  from  following  their  trade  in  their  own  town. 

The  fact  that  the  same  or  worse  conditions  were  dis- 
covered by  the  courts  or  legislative  or  citizens'  committees 
to  have  existed  in  Chicago,  San  Francisco,  and  St.  Louis 
and  many  other  communities,  was  among  the  chief  reasons 
why  the  labor  movement  has  been  forcibly  ejected  from 
power  in  these  cities.  That  they  exist  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  throughout  the  country  where  organized  labor  is  in 
the  saddle  is  known,  though  in  the  absence  of  specific  public 

»7 


258    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

investigation  it  is  of  course  not  possible  to  state  to  just 
what  degree  they  exist. 

There  is  another  widespread  group  of  arbitrary  labor 
union  practises  which  operate  in  the  opposite  direction  to 
handicap  a  large  part  of  the  workers  and  raise  prices  and 
otherwise  tax  the  public.  There  are  about  500,000  workers 
in  the  bituminous  coal  industry.  This  is  about  100  to  150 
thousand  more  workers  than  the  efficient  operation  of  the 
industry  requires.  This  has  been  stated  by  former  Fuel  Com- 
missioner Garfield  and  by  many  other  competent  authori- 
ties. Because  of  this  excess  of  workers,  the  average  coal 
miner  can  only  get  work  some  150  to  200  days  a  year  and 
the  union  leaders  say  that  he  only  averages  about  6  hours' 
work  even  for  these  days.  If  this  100  to  150  thousand  men 
were  distributed  among  the  many  other  industries  where 
under  normal  conditions  there  is  a  shortage  of  labor,  the 
remaining  coal  miners  could  work  a  normal  amount  of  time 
and  earn  a  very  good  wage  at  a  much  lower  wage  rate.  But 
except  for  the  workers  in  West  Virginia  and  a  few  isolated 
sections,  all  these  men  belong  to  the  United  Mine  Workers' 
Union  and  pay  dues — ^between  $11 ,000,000  and  $20,000,000 
a  year  dues — into  the  Union  Treasury.  Therefore  this 
union,  which  has  for  years  dominated  the  coal  industry,  in- 
sists on  keeping  all  these  men  in  the  industry  and  forces  the 
payment  of  such  a  high  wage  scale  that  these  men  can  earn 
ordinary  wages  by  thus  working  about  half  the  time.  There 
are,  of  course,  other  factors  which  contribute  to  the  exces- 
sive price  of  coal  but  there  is  little  question  that  the  chief 
cause  is  the  fact  that  all  the  consumers  of  soft  coal — and  so 
ultimately  the  public — must  pay  this  tax  to  the  unions  of 
one  and  a  half  men's  wages  for  one  man's  work  on  every 
ton  of  coal  they  buy. 

THIRD,  the  modern  ''Labor  Movement  insists  on  opera- 
ting outside  the  law. 

That  men  and  organizations  shall  keep  their  word  and 
their  contract  and  otherwise  be  responsible  for  their  acts,  is 
the  only  basis  on  which  orderly  human  relations  are  pos- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       259 

sible.  Every  other  class  in  American  society  takes  this  for 
granted  and  if  it  does  not  do  so  is  forced  by  law  to  live  up  to 
these  fundamental  business  and  social  obligations. 

That  modern  labor  organizations  as  a  matter  of  fact  fre- 
quently do  not  keep  their  contracts  and  frequently  try  to 
avoid  responsibility  for  their  acts  is  of  course  generally 
known.  But  that  the  modem  "Labor  Movement"  in- 
sist, as  a  matter  of  principle  and  right,  that  it  shall  not  be 
subject  to  the  laws  on  which  all  organized  society  and  all 
modern  civilization  are  based,  has  been  frequently  hinted  at 
and  has  recently  been  frankly  and  officially  admitted  by 
Mr.  Samuel  Gompers. 

In  his  already  famous,  and  what  will  doubtless  prove 
historic  cross  examination  before  the  Lockwood  Committee, 
April  21  and  22,  1922  (pages  6714  to  6889  of  the  Record), 
Mr.  Gompers  testified  as  to  organized  labor's  own  point  of 
view  as  to  its  relations  with  its  members,  with  employers 
and  with  the  public.  It  must  be  particularly  remembered 
throughout  this  testimony  that  New  York  is  a  "union 
town"  in  which  no  man  in  the  trades  discussed  can  get 
work  unless  he  is  a  member  of  the  union,  and  no  employer 
can  get  workers  to  do  his  work  except  through  the  unions 
and  on  the  union  terms. 

After  discussing  many  labor  union  practices  which  result 
in  injury  and  often  extreme  injury  to  the  workers  them- 
selves, and  which  practises  Mr.  Gompers  had  to  admit  were 
wrong  in  themselves,  Mr.  Untermeyer,  Counsel  for  the 
Lockwood  Committee,  asked: 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  they  (the  unions)  do  confessedly  a  wrong 
thing,  an  oppressive  thing,  a  vicious  thing  to  their  own  people,  don't 
you  think  the  law  should  step  in  and  give  redress? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  No  sir. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Suppose  it  appeared,  as  it  does  in  the  record  here, 
that  practically  every  Labor  Union  in  this  state  connected  with  the 
building  trade?,  and  certainly  in  this  City,  having  a  constitution  and 
by-laws,  have  provisions  for  expulsion  of  members  without  any  power  of 
review;  don't  you  think  that  the  State  should  legulate  that  so  that  the 
courts  would  have  the  right  of  review  over  the  expulsion  of  members? 


26o    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"Mr.  Gompers:    No  sir. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  You  think  that  the  Labor  Union?  should  be  per- 
mitted to  exercise  this  autocratic  and  despotic  power  of  capital  punish- 
ment without  any  say-so  by  the  courts? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  God  save  Labor  from  the  courts. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  You  would  not  allow  the  right  of  review  to  a  man 
who  wanted  to  get  into  a  Union  and  who  was  refused  admittance  on  the 
pretext  that  he  was  not  qualified,  if  he  could  show,  overwhelmingly, 
that  he  was  the  best  qualified  man  in  the  Union,  you  would  not  allow 
the  right  of  review  in  the  courts  in  such  a  case,  would  you? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  I  would  not. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  You  also  heard  did  you  not,  those  two  young  men, 
one  of  whom  had  been  a  plumbers'  apprentice  four  years  and  a  half  and 
the  other  for  five  and  a  half  years,  tell  of  their  efiforts  to  become  journey- 
men plumbers?,  did  you? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Yes  Sir. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  And  you  would  disapprove,  would  you  not,  of  any 
relief  for  them  except  through  the  Union? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Yes  sir.    That  is  not  through  the  courts. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Then  as  I  understand  you,  you  would  prefer  to 
see  them  go  without  any  redress  until  they  can  get  redress  from  the 
Union? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:    Yes  sir. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Woiild  it  be  true  no  matter  to  what  extent  the 
abuse  might  go?  " 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Yes  sir. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  It  appears  here  that  some  of  these  Unions  keep  no 
books,  no  accounts  of  receipts;  that  their  officers  take  in  dues  in  cash, 
dispose  of  them,  and  that  there  is  no  accounting.  There  is  no  relief  from 
that  unless  the  Union  chooses  otherwise,  is  there? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Until  the  Labor  movement 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  I  mean  there  is  no  relief  now.  We  are  not  talking 
about  the  dim  future  and  the  Labor  movement  we  are  talking  about 
existing  conditions. 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Yes. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Take  a  case  in  which  the  ofiScers  steal  the  funds  of 
the  Union,  and  there  are  no  books  to  show  and  no  way  of  proving  that 
they  steal,  don't  you  think  the  Legislature  should  regulate  those  associa- 
tions to  the  extent  of  requiring  that  they  should  keep  books  of  accounts 
of  their  receipts  and  expenditures  in  the  interest  of  common  honesty. 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  I  think  the  Legislature  should  not  interfere  in  the 
matter  at  all,  regrettable  and  bad  as  the  condition  may  be. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  If  all  the  trade  unions  in  New  York,  engaged  in  the 
Building  Trades  agree  with  all  the  employers  engaged  in  the  building 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       261 

trades  that  the  rate  of  wages  for  a  plasterer  for  the  year  should  be  nine 
dollars,  it  would  be  a  gross  breach  of  contract  for  the  employers,  because 
of  a  depression  in  business,  to  try  to  get  them  to  work  for  eight  dollars, 
wouldn't  it." 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Yes  ?ir. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Wouldn't  it  be  an  equal  breach  of  contract  on  the 
part  of  the  imion  and  its  members  to  take  advantage  of  an  activity  to 
try  to  get  ten  or  twelve  dollars  in  the  face  of  its  contract  to  work  for  nine 
dollars? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  No. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Then  what  is  the  good  of  a  contract  if  it  cannot  be 
enforced? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Because  time  develops  self -discipline. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  They  (the  members  of  a  union)  ought  to  be  able  to 
flaunt  the  contract  and  disregard  it  just  as  they  please? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  did  not  say  that. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Is  not  that  a  flaunting  of  the  contract,  if  they 
simply  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  job  and  demand  a  30%  increase? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Well,  flaunting  is  disregarding  the  contract. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  And  you  say  that  there  ought  to  be  no  remedy? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Not  by  law. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  are  you  going  to  get  the  remedy? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  By  the  organized  labor  movement. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  But  there  is  no  such  remedy  now,  is  there? 

*'  Mr.  Gompers:  But  there  is  constantly  growing  improvement. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  But  there  is  no  such  remedy  now.  Never  mind 
what  is  growing.    There  is  no  such  remedy  now  is  there? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  There  is  no  remedy  now." 

The  jurisdictional  dispute  between  the  plumbers  and  the 
steamfitters  upon  a  $30,000,000  power  house  at  Hell  Gate 
being  built  by  the  city  was  drawn  to  Mr.  Gompers'  atten- 
tion. He  said  that  the  President  of  the  International  of 
which  both  local  unions  were  members  had  rendered  de- 
cision in  the  matter,  but  acknowledged  that  the  President 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  enforcing  of  his  decision  and  that 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  was  without  power  to 
enforce  it.     The  testimony  continued: 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  There  being  this  jurisdictional  dispute  between  the 
two  unions,  and  there  being  no  authority  within  the  vmions  or  within 
organized  labor  that  can  function  so  as  to  enforce  a  settlement  of  that 


262     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

dispute,  do  you  want  us  to  understand  that  you  would  not  approve  of 
any  interference  by  the  courts  to  protect  that  contractor  against  the 
consequences  of  that  jurisdictional  dispute  between  the  Unions? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  hold  that  the  courts  could  not  compel  these  men  to 
work. 

"Mr.  Untertneyer:  Won't  you  answer  my  question?  Do  you  think 
there  should  be  no  right  of  redress  to  the  courts? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  say  that  there  is  no 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Won't  you  answer  me? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  think  that  the  courts  should  not  be  given  that 
power. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Do  you  think  then  that  in  such  a  case  that  man 
should  be  entirely  without  redress? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  The  man 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Won't  you  answer  me? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  That  is  not  the  alternative. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Has  he  any  redress? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  I  do  not  know. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  If  he  has  no  redress,  you  think  he  should  be  with- 
out redfess? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  From  the  courts? 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Without  any  redress — if  he  has  none,  do  you  think 
he  should  remain  without  redress?  It  is  a  plain  question.  You  can 
answer  it  yes  or  no. 

"Mr.  Gompers:  That  is  one  of  the  risks  of  the  industry.  ...  I  do 
not  see  where  he  can  have  any  redress. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Do  you  think  he  should  remain  without  redress? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Yes  sir,  rather  than 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  I  am  going  to  ask  you  the  next  question.  Don't 
you  think  that  in  such  a  case  the  cotu-ts  should  have  the  right  to  give  him 
redress? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  The  courts  cannot  give  him  any  redress. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Don't  you  think  they  ought  to  have  the  right  to 
make  the  try? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  No  sir. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Did  you  know  that  in  the  Plasterers'  Union  where 
their  own  men  did  an  inferior  job  of  work  against  the  protest  of  the 
employer,  that  they  would  send  for  the  employer  and  fine  the  employer 
for  that  work  and  make  him  pay  for  doing  it  over  again  and  not  fine  the 
men  who  did  the  work;  did  you  know  that? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  No. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  That  was  proven  here  before  this  Committee  by 
the  men  themselves;  you  would  not  approve  of  that  would  you? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  No." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       263 

Counsel  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  erection  of 
the  Ambassador  Hotel  in  New  York,  the  owner  had  mantels 
made  of  Keene's  cement  which  enables  the  affixing  of  the 
mantel  to  the  building  at  less  cost  than  by  other  methods. 
The  plasterers  compelled  the  builder  to  destroy  these 
mantels  and  substitute  others  to  be  attached  by  a  more 
costly  method.     The  testimony  continued: 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Don't  you  think  that  if  such  a  practice  is  indulged 
in  under  resolution  of  the  Union,  that  the  employer  who  suffered  that 
loss  should  have  a  remedy  in  damages  against  the  union  for  the  one 
hundred  and  odd  mantels  that  he  lost  in  that  way? 

''Mr.  Gompers:  No. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  You  think  he  should  have  no  remedy  whatever? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  Not  by  a  recourse  to  any  new  law. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  should  the  remedy  be,  what  remedy  should 
he  have? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  He  has  none.    That  is  the  risk  of  the  industry. " 

Counsel  referring  to  the  record  advised  the  witness  that 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Plasterers'  Union  had  com- 
pelled the  owner  of  the  Ambassador  Hotel  to  tear  down  part 
of  a  wall  because  the  delegate,  a  plasterer  by  trade,  did  not 
approve  the  color  and  style  in  the  imitation  of  Travatine 
marble  from  an  artistic  point  of  view,  although  it  was 
entirely  satisfactory  to  the  owner  and  the  architect.  The 
testimony  reads  (page  6861) : 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  But  what  would  you  do  about  it?  The  owner  has 
had  to  tear  down  the  walls  and  he  has  had  to  do  the  thing  in  a  different 
style  to  meet  the  view  of  that  gentleman,  Mr.  Pearl,  I  think  his  name  is. 
Don't  you  think  there  ought  to  be  some  right  lodged  somewhere  to  that 
owner  to  get  damages  for  the  action  of  the  Executive  Committee? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  think  not. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  I  know  but  why  shouldn't  you  be  in  favor  as  a  just 
man,  of  giving  a  remedy  to  the  man  who  has  suffered  damages  by  that 
act?  That  is  what  I  mean  to  ask  you  .  .  .  don't  you  think  we  can 
bring  you  to  the  point,  Mr.  Gompers,  at  which  you  will  agree  with  us 
that  there  should  be  a  legal  remedy  for  such  a  wanton  act? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  I  think  not." 


264    ANALYSIS  OP  THE  INTERCHURCH 
Mr.  Gompers  went  on  to  explain  that  labor  is : 

"An  organization  of  a  mass — masses  of  men  and  are  likely  to  make 
mistakes,  likely  to  err.  They  have  the  right  to  err.  They  have  the 
right  to  make  mistakes  in  their  struggle  for  their  protection  and  im- 
provement." 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  If  they  do  err  and  make  mistakes  that  injure  the 
public  and  injure  irmocent  third  parties  with  whom  they  deal,  is  it  your 
idea  that  there  should  be  no  relief  for  that? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Not  by  law, 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  should  the  remedy  lie? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  The  law  should  not  provide  a  remedy. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  should  the  remedy  lie? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  By  their  own  experience  and  sense  of  justice. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  That  means  you  would  support  no  regulation 
whatever  except  by  the  vmions  that  are  committing  the  abuses? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  No. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  Where  would  there  be  any  redress  for  these  abuses 
except  through  their  correction  by  the  unions  by  which  the  abuses  are 
being  perpetrated? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  By  the  general  labor  movement. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  But  you  say  none  of  these  general  labor  movements 
have  any  compulsory  power  over  a  local? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  And  I  would  not. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  You  would  not  give  them  any,  would  you? 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  I  would  not. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Then  why  do  you  say  that  the  general  labor  move- 
ment could  do  anything  toward  correcting  these  admitted  abuses  for 
which  you  will  allow  no  other  form  of  correction? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  The  influence  of  the  American  labor  movement  has 
been  great  in  eliminating  many  of  the  abuses  which  have  existed;  it  has 
not  succeeded  entirely. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Are  you  not  aware,  Mr.  Gompers,  as  a  historical 
fact,  that  as  the  labor  vmions  have  grown  in  power  the  abuses  have  ac- 
cumulated and  increased? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  In  some  instances,  yes. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  But  don't  you  know  that  that  is  the  rule,  a  natural 
thing,  that  where  the  power  gets  stronger  and  stronger  the  abuses 
grow  greater  and  greater? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  In  some  instances,  yes. 

"  Mr.  Untermeyer:  In  the  last  five  years  is  there  a  single  reform  in  all 
the  constitutions  and  by-laws  of  these  different  unions,  in  some  of  which 
there  are  as  many  as  fifty  abuses  in  a  single  tmion? 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       265 

"  Mr.  Gompers:  Probably. 
"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Has  one  been  reformed? 
"  Mr.  Gompers:  Not  those  to  which  you  refer. 

"Mr.  Untermeyer:  Any  others,  can  you  refer  to  one  that  has  been 
reformed  in  five  years  in  any  union  in  Greater  New  York? 
"Mr.  Gompers:  I  cannot  say  that  I  can." 

Of  course  the  country  has  been  long  familiar  with  a  host 
of  such  arbitrary,  utterly  lawless  acts  on  the  part  of  in- 
dividual unions  or  union  officials.  The  public  has  been 
apt,  however,  to  regard  these  as  merely  isolated  and  excep- 
tional incidents.  But  Mr.  Gompers'  plain  statement  made 
categorically  and  in  detail  that  the  "Labor  Movement" 
demands  the  right  of  practising  the  widest  variety  of  the 
gravest  injustices  to  labor  itself,  to  the  employer  and  to  the 
public  "no  matter  to  what  extent  the  abuse  might  go," 
without  any  responsibility  before  the  law  or  any  other  au- 
thority than  their  own  will,  has  established  the  fact  that 
lawlessness  is  not  a  mere  incident  in  its  practices  but  is 
claimed  as  an  inherent  right  of  the  modem  "Labor  Move- 
ment." That  is  why  our  unbiased  public  leaders  who  are 
really  informed  have  long  insisted  just  as  has  Senator 
Beveridge  that: — 

"When  (labor)  organizations  by  threat  to  strangle  the  nation  can 
dictate  laws  for  their  own  advantage  at  the  expense  of  all  the  people 
then  regvdar  government  by  all  for  the  good  of  all  is  annihilated." 

— and  as  does  Bishop  McCabe  that: 

"As  now  constituted  labor  unions  cannot  long  stand.  Either  they 
must  reform  themselves  or  they  will  cease  to  exist. " 

There  is  one  further  important  fact  in  regard  to  "Or- 
ganized Labor"  which  also  explains  the  attitude  of  informed 
public  leaders  in  regard  to  it  but  will  doubtless  come  as  a 
surprise  to  the  average  American  who  has  obtained  his  ideas 
of  the  "Labor  Movement "  chiefly  from  " Organized  Labor " 
propaganda. 


266    ANALYSIS  OP  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Organized  labor  itself  has  always  made  every  effort  to 
spread  the  fiction  that  it  represents  American  labor  as  a 
whole.  The  Interchurch  Report  speaks  of  the  fight  of  the 
Steel  Corporation  for  the  Open  Shop  against  the  Labor 
Movement.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  opposite  is 
true  and  this  whole  situation  is  the  result  of  an  attack  on 
labor  and  labor  conditions  as  a  whole  by  the  surprisingly 
small  percentage  of  all  labor  which  is  under  the  domination 
of  the  "Labor  Movement." 

Dr.  Leo  Wollmann,  who  is  himself  entirely  favorable  to 
and  is  at  present  working  for  one  of  the  great  factions  of  the 
modern  "Labor  Movement,"  in  an  article  entitled,  "The 
Extent  of  Trade  Unionism,"  prepared  on  the  basis  of  the- 
last  official  figures  in  191 7,  states  that  of  all  American  labor 
only  7.7%  are  members  of  unions  and  that  even  considering 
the  limited  classes  of  labor  among  which  the  labor  unions 
have  made  their  greatest  success,  only  18.4%  were  mem- 
bers of  unions.  In  Mr.  Gompers'  own  trade,  for  instance, 
the  cigar  makers,  less  than  25%  belong  to  the  union. 

There  is,  of  course,  another  side  to  the  whole  trade  union 
question.  Undoubtedly  organizations  of  workers,  not  only 
for  mutual  protection  but  for  the  discussion  of  questions  of 
mutual  interest  and  united  decision  and  action  on  legiti- 
mate programs  for  mutual  advancement,  would  often  be  to 
the  best  interests  not  only  of  the  workers  but  often  of  their 
industry.  Many  sincere  and  intelligent  men  who  recog- 
nize all  the  evils  of  modern  trade  unionism  still  feel  that  it 
performs  a  valuable  service  at  least  to  the  extent  that  it 
serves  as  a  constant  threat  to  the  short-sighted  employer 
who  otherwise  might  not  only  take  advantage  of  his  own 
men  but  establish  a  standard  which  more  decent  employers 
might  believe  they  had  to  meet  in  order  to  meet  his 
competition. 

Large  ntmibers  of  people  who  hold  such  views — some  of 
them  inside  as  well  as  outside  of  modem  trade  unions — 
believe  that  industry  can  be  best  served  by  a  reformed 
trade  unionism. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       267 

Moreover,  there  are  unquestionably  a  certain  percentage 
of  individual  unions  in  the  modem  Labor  Movement  which, 
because  of  the  high  type  of  their  individual  membership  or 
leadership  or  both,  adequately  represent  the  best  spirit  and 
ideals  of  American  Labor  and  have  proved  a  valuable  con- 
structive force  for  both  their  members  and  their  industry. 

The  fact,  however,  that  80%  of  the  steel  workers  them- 
selves— tens  of  thousands  of  whom  were  former  union 
members — definitely  refused  to  accept  the  kind  of  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  that  was  proposed  for  the 
steel  industry,  together  with  all  the  facts  which  have  already 
been  considered  in  connection  with  that  proposed  unioni- 
zation, and  the  leadership  under  which  it  was  agitated, 
raise  a  strong  presumption  that  it  did  not  promise  to  be 
more  democratic  or  otherwise  very  different  from  the  or- 
dinary modem  trade  unionism  which  90%  of  all  American 
workers  have  refused  to  accept  because  of  its  working  and 
results  in  industry  in  general. 

Nevertheless,  the  proposition  of  the  unionization  of  the 
steel  industry  has  been  so  particularly  stressed  by  both  the 
first  and  second  volumes  of  the  Interchurch  Report  and 
the  interest  of  the  great  basic  steel  industry  so  vitally  affects 
the  public  interest  that  the  probable  particular  results  which 
would  follow  the  unionization  of  that  particular  industry 
warrant  specific  discussion. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TRADE    UNION   COLLECTIVE    BARGAINING   AS   PARTICULARLY 
APPLIED  TO  THE   STEEL   INDUSTRY 

It  was  frankly  admitted  by  the  strike  leaders  themselves 
that  they  planned  the  steel  unionization  drive  without  even 
the  knowledge  of  the  great  majority  of  the  workers,  and  that 
otherwise  the  whole  idea  of  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
in  the  steel  industry  was  originated,  and  all  the  organiza- 
tion arrangements  for  attempting  to  carry  it  out  were  put 
into  operation,  by  professional  labor  leaders. 

Judge  Gary  stated,  and  the  results  of  the  unionization 
drive  and  the  strike  showed,  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
steel  workers  themselves  were  either  indifferent  to  or  did 
not  want  trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel 
industry. 

These  facts  in  themselves  indicate  that  unless  the  con- 
trary can  be  shown  it  must  be  taken  for  granted  that  the 
particular  trade  union  collective  bargaining  proposed  for 
the  steel  industry  was  the  stereotyped  professional  labor 
leader  kind  which  involved  the  adoption  in  the  steel  in- 
dustry, as  rapidly  as  should  prove  practicable  or  possible, 
of  the  fundamental  principles  and  practices  of  the  "Labor 
Movement "  which  have  already  been  described.  The  only 
apparent  probability  that  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
would  have  worked  any  differently  in  the  steel  industry  than 
it  has  in  most  other  industries  was  the  possible  extent  to 
which  Mr.  Foster  and  his  faction  might  have  been  able  to 
modify  it  toward  radicalism. 

268 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       269 

After  the  failure  of  the  unionization  drive  to  interest 
more  than  a  fifth  of  the  workers,  after  the  first  week  of 
the  strike  when  at  least  the  National  leaders  probably  al- 
ready knew  that  the  strike  was  a  failure,  and  particularly 
after  Judge  Gary  had  especially  attacked,  both  in  public 
statements  and  in  his  Senate  testimony,  the  proposition 
of  the  closed  shop  in  the  industry,  the  strike  leaders  at- 
tempted in  their  testimony  before  the  Senate  Committee  to 
insist  that  they  were  not  demanding  the  closed  shop  in 
the  steel  industry. 

The  closed  shop  is  a  fundamental  policy  and  practice  of 
the  Labor  Movement  in  general  and  particularly  of  the  24 
International  Unions  involved  in  the  steel  strike.  It  is 
a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  closed  shop  has 
been  insisted  on  and  exists  in  every  industry  in  which  or- 
ganized labor  is  strong  enough  to  make  its  policies  effective, 
and  that  in  each  new  industry  where  the  Labor  Movement 
obtains  a  hold  it  enforces  the  closed  shop  just  as  rapidly  as 
it  can  acquire  the  power  to  do  so. 

Moreover,  even  while  they  were  insisting  that  they  were 
not  then  demanding  the  closed  shop  in  the  industry,  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  and  Mr.  Gompers  were  forced  under  cross- 
examination  by  the  Senate  Committee  to  admit  that  their 
unionization  plans  and  policy  led  directly  and  inevitably  to 
the  closed  shop  and  Mr.  Tighe,  President  of  the  Amalga- 
mated Association,  in  answer  to  Senator  Walsh's  question 
as  to  whether  or  not  the  strike  leaders  "had  it  in  their 
hearts,"  or  in  any  way  proposed  to  bring  about  the  closed 
shop  in  the  steel  industry,  merely  answered  that  that  ques- 
tion had  not,  as  far  as  he  knew,  been  definitely  discussed  by 
the  strike  leaders. 

Mr.  Gompers  testified  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page 
95): 

"Senator  Phipps:  What  is  the  attitude  ...  as  regards  employing 
non-union  men  in  shops  where  you  have  organized  the  employees? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  The  national  trade  unions'  effort  has  been  to  try  to 
organize  the  workers. 


270    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"Senator  Phipps:  And  to  exclude  the  employment  of  non-union  men 
wherever  possible? 

"Mr.  Gompers:  To  organize  the  workers,  to  try  to  have  the  workers 
organized  in  a  plant  ioo%." 

In  regard  to  the  same  point  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  also  after 
much  cross-examining  finally  testified  (Senate  Hearings, 
Part  I,  page  53) : 

"Senator  Stirling:  And  you  object  in  a  union  shop  to  the  taking  in  of 
non-union  men,  do  you  not? 

"Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  No, 

"  Senator  Stirling:  Do  you  not  try  to  prevent  the  employment  of  non- 
union men  in  the  union  shop? 

"Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  In  the  union  shop  the  employer  and  the  employees 
have  agreed  that  the  union  men  will  be  employed.  Then  ...  in  case  of 
inability  of  the  union  to  furnish  imion  men  or  of  the  employer  to  secure 
union  men,  that  in  that  situation,  then  the  employer  can  employ  non- 
union men.  .  .  . 

"Senator  Stirling:  That  is  only  however  in  case  he  is  not  able  to  secure 
union  men  that  he  is  permitted  to  employ  non-vmion  men? 

"  Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  Yes. " 

Moreover,  number  9  of  the  12  demands  which  the  strike 
leaders  made  of  the  steel  companies  shows  plainly,  as  will 
be  developed  later,  that  it  was  the  express  intention  of  the 
strike  leaders  to  enforce  the  closed  shop  in  the  steel  industry 
or  otherwise  demand  number  9  would  be  meaningless. 

Considering  then  the  fundamental  principles  and  prac- 
tices of  the  present  Labor  Movement,  and  that  the  24  Inter- 
national unions  which  instigated  the  steel  strike  held  to 
exactly  these  same  principles  and  practices  and  often  carried 
them  to  extremes,  and  considering  the  fact  that  their  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry  was  to  have 
worked  directly  towards  the  closed  shop  under  which  as  a 
matter  of  fact  and  practice  every  worker  would  have  had 
to  come  under  direct  and  secret  union  control  or  lose  his 
job,  there  is  obviously  every  reason  to  believe  that  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry  would  also 
have  meant  the  decreased  production,  the  interference  with 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       271 

the  introduction  of  new  machinery  and  other  technical  im- 
provements, and  the  subjection  of  the  whole  industry  to  the 
constant  labor  agitation  fostered  by  the  selfish  ambitions 
of  rival  labor  leaders  or  rival  unions,  which  have  marked 
conditions  in  most  other  industries  which  have  come  under 
the  control  of  the  Labor  Movement. 

Entirely  in  addition  to  this,  however,  there  were  many 
specific  factors  in  connection  with  the  proposed  unioniza- 
tion of  the  steel  industry  which  would  have  exaggerated 
these  ordinarily  unfavorable  results. 

These  special  factors  were : 

First,  the  particular  professional  labor  leaders  who  were 
to  have  instituted  and  who  would  undoubtedly  have  con- 
tinued to  have  a  large  voice  in  carrying  out  of  trade  union 
collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry. 

Second,  the  fact  that  there  were  24,  and  the  particular 
rivalries  and  other  relations  of  these  24,  International 
unions  which  would  have  controlled  the  majority  of  the 
steel  workers  and  whose  many  various  individual  and  often 
hostile  interests  and  policies  would  necessarily  infinitely 
complicate  the  labor  policy  of  the  steel  industry ;  and 

Third,  certain  of  the  special  12  demands  which  the  strike 
leaders  made  on  the  companies  as  a  basis  for  collective 
bargaining  in  the  steel  industry. 

Mr.  Foster  was  one  of  the  chief  leaders  who  was  to  have 
instituted  trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel 
industry.  On  his  own  plain  definite  admission  and  that  of 
the  Interchurch  Report,  Mr.  Foster's  whole  interest  in 
trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel  industry  or  in 
any  other  industry  was  to  make  every  possible  use  of  it  as  a 
means  to  carrying  out  certain  aims  of  his  own,  which  aims 
he  described  several  years  before  the  strikes  as  being  to  seize 
industry  and  set  up  a  syndicalist  soviet  government  and 
which  aims  he  described  after  the  strike  merely  by  the 
words  "radical"  and  "revolutionary." 

It  is  accordingly  clear  that  as  far  as  Mr.  Foster's  leader- 
ship in  it  was  concerned,  the  particular  proposed  trade 


272     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

union  collective  bargaining  would  not  be  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  steel  industry  or  the  country.^ 

The  second  most  important  individual  among  the  steel 
leaders  and  also  on  the  committee  which  was  to  inaugurate 
the  proposed  trade  union  collective  bargaining  in  the  steel 
industry  was  John  Fitzpatrick. 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick  testified: 

Some  of  them  (steel  workers)  get  $20  and  $40,  as  I  understand  it  as 
high  as  $60,  a  day  but  .  .  .  it  is  not  anything  like  what  he  ought  to 
have,  no  matter  what  he  gets,"  (Senate  Hearings,  Part  I,  page  61,  Une 
29); 

also, 

"A  group  of  steel  emplyees  .  .  .  passed  resolutions  stating  that  the 
conditions  in  the  steel  mills  were  very  satisfactory;  that  the  wages  were 
all  that  could  be  hoped  for,  and  that  there  was  absolutely  no  complaint 
on  which  to  justify  any  kind  of  grievance  and  therefore  that  they 
were  absolutely  content  with  the  conditions  that  existed.  Then  they 
.  .  .  went  in  to  their  slave  holes  in  the  steel  mills'^  (Senate  Hearings, 
Part  I,  page  81,  line  22) ; 

and  again 

"  Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  If  we  undertook  to  postpone  the  strike  or  wait  imtil 
October  6th  (as  President  Wilson  requested)  .  .  .  then  we  would  have 
been  shot  to  pieces.  There  would  not  have  been  anybody  here  to  make 
any  report. 

"Senator  Smith.  You  said  if  you  had  delayed  the  strike  you  would 
have  been  shot  to  pieces;  your  organization  would  have  been  shot  to 
pieces. 


^  "  Foster  is  just  back  from  Russia  where  he  was  in  touch  with  Lenin 
and  Trotzky.  Judging  from  his  own  statements  no  man  visiting  the 
Soviet  was  ever  treated  better.  .  .  .  Immediately  upon  his  return  to 
the  United  States  he  proceeds  to  organize  the  Trade  Union  Education- 
al League.  Presumably  Foster  is  the  educator.  .  ,  .  Back  of  that  re- 
solution (Foster's)  is  the  propaganda  of  radical  revolution  to  overthrow 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  .  .  .  and  William  Z.  Foster 
wants  to  become  an  autocrat  of  America." 

Samuel  Gompers, 
April  30,  1922. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       273 

"  Mr.  Fitzpatrick:  And  with  the  shooting  of  our  organization  to  pieces 
our  members  would  have  been  shot  in  cold  blood  .  .  .  "(Senate 
Hearings,  Part  I,  page  20). 

Mr.  Fitzpatrick's  whole  Senate  testimony  indicates  his 
sincerity.  But  the  point  of  view  which  beHeved  that,  in 
view  of  the  relation  between  wages  and  prices,  workers  ought 
to  receive  $18,000  a  year  and  "more  if  they  can  get  it," 
and  which  scathingly  condemned  any  workers  who  stated 
that  they  did  not  feel  the  grievances  which  his  self-interested 
prejudice  thought  they  ought  to  feel,  and  which  argued 
volubly  and  in  perfect  seriousness  that  the  strike  leaders 
didn't  dare  postpone  the  strike  two  weeks,  as  President 
Wilson  requested,  for  fear  that  all  their  members  would 
have  been  "shot  down  in  cold  blood,"  so  that  "no  one 
would  have  been  left  to  report,"  hardly  represents  a  point 
of  view  which  the  pubHc  can  afford  to  have  given  a  domi- 
nant voice  in  the  management  of  the  steel  industry.  More- 
over the  quality  of  Mr.  Fitzpatrick's  executive  abihty  is 
further  indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  the  Chicago  district 
where  he  had  for  years  been  President  of  the  local  American 
Federation  of  Labor  grand  juries  have  recently  uncovered 
more  labor  graft,  blackmail  and  intimidation  and  general 
preying  on  the  public  than  has  ever  been  known  to  exist  in 
any  other  city  in  the  country.^ 

The  continuation  of  collective  bargaining,  if  it  had  been 
established  in  the  steel  industry,  would  have  been  carried 
out  as  it  effected  about  60%  of  the  men,  by  the  24  Inter- 
national unions  who  claimed  jurisdiction  over  the  steel 
industry  and  to  whose  organizations  (according  to  Mr. 
Foster's  records)  60%  of  the  unionized  steel  workers  had 

» As  a  climax  to  organized  labor  conditions  in  Chicago  which  have 
been  growing  worse  and  more  notorious  for  years,  on  May  10, 1922,  the 
Chicago  headquarters  of  the  various  unions  were  raided  by  the  police, 
material  for  bombs  found  and  seized  and  200  labor  leaders  arrested,  who 
were  characterized  by  the  Chicago  Chief  of  Police  as  "hoodlums  and  ex- 
convicts,"  who  "no  more  represent  honest  labor  than  the  Hay  market 
anarchists  did." 

z8 


274    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

been  variously  assigned.  In  other  words,  all  such  ques- 
tions as  "control  of  the  job,"  "promotion,"  "working 
hours" — which  the  Interchurch  Report  particularly  men- 
tions— and  in  general  all  questions  having  to  do  with  labor, 
including  rate  of  production  and  pay,  would  all  have  been 
determined  under  the  proposed  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  by  representatives  of  the  company  and  repre- 
sentatives of  each  of  these  24  International  unions. 

Mr.  Gompers'  testimony  before  the  Lockwood  Com- 
mittee plainly  indicates  that  the  large  proportion  of  all 
strikes  and  other  labor  agitation  and  trouble  which  notori- 
ously and  constantly  disrupts  the  country's  building  opera- 
tions, is  caused,  not  by  any  question  between  employer  and 
employee  affecting  the  interests  of  the  men,  but  because  of  the 
rivalries  and  jealousies  of  the  different  unions  involved. 
That  the  same  conditions  applies  to  a  more  or  less  degree 
wherever  the  Labor  Movement  is  in  control,  generally  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  unions  which  claim  jurisdiction 
in  the  particular  industry  is  well  known. 

The  very  fact  then  that  there  were  24  rival  International 
unions  involved  in  the  proposed  trade  union  collective 
bargaining  in  the  steel  industry  of  itself  was  particularly 
calculated  to  make  such  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
particularly  hectic. 

Moreover  the  fact  that  these  24  International  unions 
could  not  even  wait  until  they  had  established  such  trade 
union  collective  bargaining  to  demonstrate  how  hectic  and 
generally  disruptive  that  bargaining  would  be  is  repeatedly 
admitted  and  emphasized  by  both  Mr.  Foster  and  the 
Interchurch  Report. 

The  Interchurch  Report  states 

"The  third  cause  (of  the  failure  of  the  strike)  was  the  disunity  of 
labor  "  (p.  1 79).  "The  Stationary  Engineers  and  the  Switchmen,  two  of 
the  24  Internationals,  did  not  call  their  members  out  of  the  steel  plants 
and  yards  but  a  number  of  Switchmen's  locals  did.  The  Amalgamated 
Association  of  Iron,  Steel  and  Tin  Workers  after  a  month  began  ordering 
its  men  back  into  independent  plants"  (175).    "In  the  Calumet  district. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       275 

the  Switchmen  refused  to  pull  out  their  men  because  the  organizer  said 
' Trade  control  was  at  stake.'  The  Switchmen  were  rivals  of  the  Train- 
men for  the  men  in  the  plant  yards  and  if  they'd  have  struck,  the  Train- 
men would  have  stuck,  filled  up  the  places,  broke  the  strike  and  the 
Switchmen  could  never  have  got  back"  (p.  i8i)  "Electrical  International 
officers  say  their  people  did  not  want  steel  organized  because  electrical 
workers,  during  slack  times  in  union  shops  like  to  be  free  to  get  steel 
jobs  which  they  couldn't  if  steel  was  organized  "  (p.  i8i),  "Among  the 
24  unions,  besides  the  fights  over  segregating  recruits,  there  came  up  in 
devastating  form  the  unsolved  problem  of  the  sacredness  of  contracts 
.  .  .  the  Amalgamated  was  acrimoniously  charged  (by  rival  unions) 
with  choosing  between  its  contracts  with  employers  and  its  contracts 
with  fellow  unions.  Its  choice  was  called  treason.  .  .  .  Moreover 
there  was  no  unity  ...  as  between  the  steel  unions  and  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,"  p.  (179). 

Mr.  Foster  goes  into  even  greater  detail  to  show  how 
utterly  impossible  it  was  for  these  24  unions  to  forget  their 
jealousies  and  rivalries  and  work  together  even  for  a  few 
months  in  order  to  achieve  a  common  advantage  that  ad- 
mittedly they  could  not  achieve  save  by  the  strongest 
possible  unity  of  action. 

But  under  trade  union  collective  bargaining,  these  24 
unions  would  have  to  work  month  in  and  month  out,  not 
only  with  each  other  but  with  what  they  at  least  secretly  re- 
gard as  their  inherent  class  enemies — ^the  steel  companies — 
as  well.  Working  agreements  would  have  constantly  to  be 
formulated  and  maintained  not  merely  in  regard  to  a  few 
simple  policies  but  on  a  host  of  practical  details,  on  many  of 
which  every  separate  union  might  have  a  different  point  of 
view  and  interest. 

For  the  interests  and  policies  of  each  of  these  24  unions  is 
inevitably  determined  not  by  conditions  or  necessities  in 
the  steel  industry,  where  most  of  them  would  only  have  a 
minority  of  their  members,  but  by  conditions  or  necessities 
in  other  industries  where  most  of  them  would  have  their 
majority  memberships.  This  condition  would  also  in- 
evitably involve  many  further  complicating  probabilities. 
The  unions  embracing  the  low-skilled  foreign  workers  would 


276    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

have  a  constant  tendency  toward  radicalism.  The  personal 
ambitions  of  some  Skinny  Madden  or  some  Brindell  would 
be  24  times  as  likely  as  ordinary  to  further  agitate  the  labor 
political  waters  or  muddy  them  with  graft  and  corruption. 
In  view  of  these  perfectly  plain  and  admitted  facts,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  any  attempt  to  establish  such  a 
hydra-headed  type  of  trade  union  collective  bargaining  in 
the  steel  industry  would  constitute  the  deliberate  establish- 
ment of  a  condition  which,  according  to  all  available  labor 
experience  and  all  general  experience,  would  merely  promise 
a  state  of  industrial  chaos  of  which  the  building  trades  offer 
a  most  conspicuous  example. 

The  third  particular  factor  in  the  steel  situation  which 
promised  to  exaggerate  the  normal  tendency  of  trade  union 
collective  bargaining  towards  decreased  production  and  a 
general  condition  where  the  worker  must  give  his  loyalty  to 
his  union  instead  of  his  job,  and  depend  on  the  union  in- 
stead of  on  personal  efficiency  and  ambition  for  advance- 
ment, consisted  of  certain  of  the  particular  12  demands 
which  the  strike  leaders  made  upon  the  steel  companies  as 
the  basis  of  the  proposed  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
in  the  steel  industry. 

Of  these  official  12  demands,  number  3  and  number  6 
called  for  the  8  hour  day  throughout  the  industry  and  an 
"increase  of  wages  sufficient  to  guarantee  an  American 
standard  of  living."  The  merits  of  these  demands  and  the 
results  of  their  possible  acceptance  have  already  been 
sufficiently  discussed. 

Demand  number  10  insisted  that  "Principles  of  seniori- 
ty apply  in  maintaining,  reducing  or  increasing  working 
forces" — this  demand  meant  that  all  incentive  among  the 
workers  to  be  efficient  in  their  jobs  in  order  to  achieve  more 
rapid  advancement  was  to  have  been  taken  away.  The 
most  able  worker  was  to  be  always  kept  below  even  the 
most  inefficient  worker  who  had  merely  been  employed 
longer  than  he  had.  In  any  reduction  of  the  working  force 
the  newer  employees,  no  matter  how  efficient  or  brilliant, 


\ 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       277 

had  to  be  let  go  and  slightly  older  employees,  no  matter  how 
inefficient,  retained.  Under  such  a  system  workers  like 
Schwab,  and  Buffington  and  Farrell  and  all  of  Carnegie's  29 
partners  would  still  be,  merely  because  of  age  and  number 
of  years  worked,  just  getting  out  of  the  semi-skilled  into  the 
skilled  worker's  class  or  else  they  would  have  had  to  seek 
the  outlet  for  their  ambitions  in  labor  politics  or  in  some 
other  industry. 

Demand  number  12  called  for  "abolition  of  physical  ex- 
amination." The  steel  industry  to  a  particular  degree  in- 
volves the  handling  of  molten  metal  and  very  heavy  ma- 
chinery, both  of  which  involve  possible  danger  to  many 
workers.  The  companies  in  their  regard  for  the  safety  of  the 
men  and  the  machinery  have  always  insisted  on  a  careful 
physical  examination  as  to  the  eyesight,  hearing,  mental 
and  muscular  reactions,  and  other  physical  qualifications  of 
the  workmen  to  whom  such  responsibilities  were  entrusted. 
It  was  one  of  the  basic  demands  of  the  unions  that  such  ex- 
aminations be  abolished,  the  object  of  course  being  to  take 
away  the  company's  last  vestige  of  control  over  its 
employees. 

Demands  numbers  11  and  9  insisted  on  "the  abolition 
of  company  unions"  and  "check-off  system  of  collecting 
union  dues  and  assessments."  The  first  of  these,  providing 
that  no  steel  worker  could  continue  to  belong  to  the  local 
steel  unions  to  which  many  of  them  had  belonged  for  years 
before  the  strike,  was  of  course  only  a  step  towards  pro- 
viding that  he  must  belong  to  one  of  the  unions  which  in- 
stigated the  strike.  The  ' '  check-off  system ' '  provided  that 
the  unions,  instead  of  having  to  collect  their  regular  dues 
and  special  assessments  from  the  men  themselves,  should 
collect  all  dues  in  a  lump  sum  from  the  steel  companies, 
the  companies  in  turn  to  take  such  sums  out  of  the  wages 
of  the  men.  The  whole  purpose  and  effect  of  the  "check- 
off system,"  which  is  so  obviously  pernicious  that  only  a 
few  of  the  most  powerful  and  radical  unions  dare  resort  to 
it,  is  to  make  it  automatically  impossible  for  any  workman 


278    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

to  stay  out  of  the  union  or  to  leave  it  while  he  keeps  his 
job.  Moreover  it  gives  the  National  union,  through  its 
local  business  agent  who  collects  all  revenues  directly  from 
the  companies,  a  secure,  arbitrary  power  and  leaves  the  local 
members  correspondingly  powerless  in  union  affairs.  The 
"check-off  system"  is  so  generally  recognized  as  perni- 
cious that  when  it  was  brought  up  in  the  Senate  Hearings, 
certain  of  the  strike  leaders  attempted  to  explain  that  they 
only  meant  to  apply  it  to  a  part  of  the  industry.  But  it 
was  one  of  the  plain,  unqualified  general  demands  upon 
which  the  strike  was  called  and  there  can  be  little  question 
that  if  the  strike  had  been  won  and  the  strike  leaders  had 
had  power  to  do  so,  they  would  have  enforced  it  to  the 
letter. 

Mr.  Tighe,  who  incidentally  was  not  a  member  of  the 
National  Committee  of  Strike  Management,  may  not  have, 
as  he  said  in  the  Senate  Hearings  he  had  not,  heard  any 
definite  discussion  of  the  closed  shop  in  the  steel  industry 
but  discussion  was  not  necessary  in  the  face  of  demands 
numbers  9  and  11  whose  direct  effect  would  have  been, 
and  obviously  whose  only  purpose  was,  to  establish  a  very 
tightly  "closed  shop"  in  the  steel  industry. 

Agriculture,  coal,  the  railroads  and  steel  are  the  four 
cornerstones  of  modem  industrial  existence  and  progress. 
Railroads  and  the  coal  industry  are  highly  unionized. 
Agriculture  and  steel  are  not.  During  the  special  exigen- 
cies of  the  war,  the  railroads  and  the  coal  industry  conspicu- 
ously failed  to  measure  up  to  the  national  needs.  This  was 
of  course  due  to  other  factors  also,  but  it  is  notorious  that 
when  the  goverrmient  took  over  the  railroads  during  the 
war,  the  Labor  Movement  "held  up  the  government,"  to 
quote  President  Garretson  of  the  Railroad  Conductors 
Union,  not  only  for  wage  increases  which  except  for  govern- 
ment support  would  have  bankrupted  the  railroads,  but  for 
a  system  of  lessened  efficiency  which  required  that  nearly 
200,000  extra  workers  be  added  to  run  the  railroads  at  this 
time  when  the  maximum  use  and  efficiency  of  all  labor  was 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       279 

of  paramount  national  importance;  and  the  coal  industry 
held  on  to  the  150,000  men  it  didn't  need  but  which  the  rest 
of  industry  did  need,  just  as  it  has  held  on  to  them  (by 
demanding  full  time  earnings  for  half  time  work)  both 
before  and  since. 

Because  of  the  peculiar  importance  of  steel,  the  war  un- 
doubtedly made  heavier  comparative  demands  on  the  steel 
industry  than  on  either  the  railroads  or  the  coal  industry. 
Yet  not  only  did  the  non-union  steel  industry  never  show 
the  least  sign  of  breaking  down  or  requiring  special  artificial 
assistance,  but  under  the  spur  of  this  crisis,  the  non-union 
steel  workers  turned  out  steel  faster  than  the  railroads 
could  furnish  facilities  to  transport  it  or  manufacturing 
equipment  could  be  multiplied  to  use  it.  And  there  can 
be  no  question  that  this  fact  was  due  primarily  to  consistent, 
able  management,  including  labor  management,  which  in 
turn  included  the  unhampered  ability  to  control  promotion 
and  working  conditions  against  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  argues  so  strongly  and  for  which  it  would  substitute 
the  kind  of  trade  union  collective  bargaining  which  holds  in 
the  coal  industry  and  the  railroads. 

Since  the  war  both  the  railroads  and  the  coal  industry 
have  again  become  notorious  national  problems,  largely 
because  of  conditions  which  have  been  created  by  the  power 
of  the  unions  to  enforce  trade  union  collective  bargaining 
and  the  kind  of  bargains  they  have  used  that  power  to 
enforce.  But  no  one  except  the  defeated  and  disgruntled 
strike  leaders  and  the  Interchurch  Report  have  ever  even 
suggested,  either  before  or  since  the  war,  that  the  steel  in- 
dustry constituted  or  threatened  to  constitute  such  a 
national  problem  as  our  other  two  great  basic  industries 
conspicuously  constitute. 

But  all  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  unionization 
drive  including  its  leadership,  the  diversity  and  rivalries  of 
the  different  unions  claiming  jurisdiction,  and  the  official 
demands  on  which  it  was  to  be  based,  all  indicate  that  if  the 
proposed  trade  union  collective  bargaining  had  been  estab- 


28o       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

lished  in  the  steel  industry,  the  steel  industry  might  very 
rapidly  have  become,  not  merely  a  national  problem,  but 
the  kind  of  national  scandal  that  the  building  trades,  with 
their  many-rival-union  control,  have  so  notoriously  become. 

But  this  kind  of  trade  union  collective  bargaining  did  not 
get  its  hold  on  the  steel  industry  because,  contrary  to 
the  statements  and  impression  of  the  whole  Interchurch 
Report,  the  men  themselves  did  not  want  it. 

On  August  I,  1920,  two  days  after  the  Interchurch  Report 
was  released  for  distribution,  the  books  of  the  U.  S.  Steel 
Corporation  showed  90,Q52  owners  of  its  common  stock.  On 
November  i,  1920,  53,000  employees  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Cor- 
poration were  actual  stockholders  and  26,000  more  em- 
ployees were  paying  for  stock.  (Figures  furnished  by  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation.) 

These  steel  workers  which  the  Interchurch  Report  de- 
scribes as  being  in  "a  state  of  latent  war"  and  "waiting 
only  for  the  next  strike"  thus  constitute  by  far  the  largest 
number  of  their  company's  stockholders.  This  fact  and  the 
whole  relation  between  the  men  and  the  company  which  it 
typifies,  constitutes  a  far  more  promising  industrial  and 
social  prospect  for  the  workers,  the  industry  and  the  whole 
country,  than  any  trade  union  collective  bargaining  arrange- 
ment with  the  men  tied  hand  and  foot  by  union  regulations, 
union  politics  and  the  "check-off"  system  and  with  Foster, 
Fitzpatrick  et  al  as  their  official  bargainers. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"social  consequences"  of  the  attitude  of  the  public 
towards  the  steel  strike 

There  can  be  no  question  that  all  the  social  forces  in 
closest  touch  with  the  strike  situation — press,  pulpit,  citi- 
zens organizations,  and  public  opinion  in  general — ^were 
overwhelmingly  against  the  steel  agitation  and  the  steel 
strike,  just  as  were  the  great  majority  of  the  workers  them- 
selves. Foster  complains  of  this  continually  and  most 
bitterly  and  the  Interchurch  Report  admits  it  freely. 

Foster  speaks  in  his  book,  The  Great  Steel  Strike  (page  2), 
of  the 

"Crawling,  subservient  and  lying  press,  which  spewed  forth  its  poison 
propaganda  in  their  (the  steel  companies')  behalf  .  .  .  selfish  and  in- 
different local  church  movements  which  had  long  since  lost  their  Chris- 
tian principle  .  .  .  hordesof  unscrupulous  municipal,  county,  state  and 
federal  officials  whose  eagerness  to  wear  the  steel  collar  was  equalled 
only  by  their  forgetfulness  of  their  oath  of  office  .  .  .  with  the  notable 
exception  of  a  few  honorable  and  courageous  individuals  here  and  there 
among  these  hostile  elements,  it  was  an  alignment  of  the  steel  companies, 
the  state,  the  courts,  the  local  churches  and  the  press  against  the  steel  workers." 

Also,  according  to  Mr.  Foster: 

"the  lackey-like  mayors  and  burgesses"  in  steel  towns  (page  30),  "the 
organized  bodies  of  war  veterans"  and  .  .  .  "the  petty  parasites  who 
prey  upon  the  steel  workers — the  professional  and  small  business  men" 
(page  97)  .  .  .  "the  local  unions"  who  refused  "to  recognize  the  national 

281 


282     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

committee's  strike  call"  (page  io6)  ,  ,  .  "the  rowdy  element  of  the 
American  Legion"  (page  no)  .  .  .  "the  infamous  (Attorney  General) 
Palmer"  (page  in)  .  .  .  'the  plug-ugly  state  constabulary'  (page 
119)  ..  .  "pliable  city  authorities  and  business  men  from  the  steel 
towns"  (page  145)  .  .  .  "the  slip-shod  haphazard"  Senate  committee 
(page  157)  .  .  .  "the  whole  news  gathering  and  distributing  system" 
(which  he  calls)  "a  gigantic  mental  prostitution"  (page  165)  .  .  . 
General  Wood  who  used  the  steel  strike  merely  as  "a  political  stunt  to 
give  General  Wood  publicity?"  (page  172)  .  .  .  Mobs  "led  by  W.  R- 
Lump,  Secretary  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  H.  L.  Tredennick,  President  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce"  (page  189)  .  .  . 

all,  he  says,  opposed  the  steel  strike  and  the  whole  strike 
movement. 

Except  then  for  Father  Kazinci  and  the  few  other  "honor- 
able and  courageous  individuals  here  and  there"  who  are 
not  mentioned  by  name,  and  the  Interchurch  Investigation 
which  "impressed  (Mr.  Foster)  by  the  scientific  methods 
and  apparent  desire  to  get  at  the  truth"  (page  157),  every 
general  social  organization  or  group  which  came  into  close 
touch  with  the  steel  strike,  from  the  Senate  Committee  to 
local  American  Legions,  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s,  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, Churches  and  Merchants  and  Citizens  in  general, 
were,  according  to  Mr.  Foster's  specific  statement,  openly 
opposed  to  the  methods  and  aims  of  the  strike  leaders,  just 
as  were  80%  of  the  workers  themselves. 

The  Interchurch  Report  is  not  so  vituperative  as  Mr. 
Foster  in  regard  to  the  forces  which  were  against  the  union- 
ization and  the  strike  movement.  In  general  it  takes  the 
attitude  toward  such  forces  of  pity  rather  than  censure  and 
in  effect  assures  them  that  they  know  not  what  they  do. 
But  the  Interchurch  Report  is  equally  specific  with  Mr. 
Foster  in  stating  that  in  general  all  the  agencies  of  govern- 
ment and  of  public  opinion  which  had  first-hand  informa- 
tion about  the  unionization  movement  and  the  strike 
opposed  it. 

After  saying  the  same  thing  over  again  and  again  on  the 
preceding  pages,  the  Interchurch  Report  says  in  summary 
on  pages  238  and  239,  that 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       283 

"great  ntimbers  of  workers  came  to  believe 

--"that  local  mayors,  magistrates  and  police  officials  try  to  break 
strikes"; 

— "that  state  and  Federal  officials,  particularly  the  Federal  Depart- 
ment of  Justice,  help  to  break  strikes,  and  that  armed  forces  are  used 
for  this  purpose"; 

— "that  most  newspapers  actively  and  promptly  exert  a  strike 
breaking  influence;  most  churches  passively." 

"...  The  Steel  Strike  made  tens  of  thousands  of  citizens  believe  that 
our  American  institutions  are  not  democratic  or  not  democratically 
administered. " 

The  Interchurch  Report  then  proceeds  through  a  niunber 
of  pages  to  "hastily  summarize"  the  evidence  which  it 
states  is  at  "the  basis  of  such  beHefs." 

It  states  that  Sheriff  Haddock  of  Allegheny  County  had  a 
brother  who  was  a  superintendent  of  an  American  Sheet,' 
Iron  and  Tin  Plate  plant;  that  Mayor  Crawford  of  Du- 
quesne  was  the  brother  of  the  President  of  the  McKeesport 
Tin  Plate  Company,  and  that  three  other  local  public 
officials  were  connected  with  the  steel  company. 

That  out  of  the  scores  of  plants  in  which  the  strike  was 
agitated,  and  that  out  of  the  thousands  of  public  officials 
in  these  communities,  these  five  were  thus  themselves  con- 
nected, or  had  some  relative  connected,  with  the  steel  in- 
dustry is  the  first  reason  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
advances  as  to  why  the  strikers  had  a 

"  deep-seated  suspiciousness  of  everything  and  everybody  connected 
with  public  executives,  courts,  Federal  agents,  army  officers,  reporters, 
or  clergy"  (page  239), 

The  Interchurch  Report  then  spends  a  paragraph  in 
alleging  that  strikers  were  fined  "from  ten  to  fifty  or  sixty 
dollars"  and  imprisoned  for  terms  which  "ran  up  to 
months"  for  causes  which  the  Report  alleges  were  insuf- 
ficient.    Therefore,  concludes  the  Interchurch  Report: 

"local  mayors,  magistrates  and  police  officials  try  to  break  strikes." 

On  page  240,  it  condemns  the  Department  of  Justice  for 
cooperating  with  private  detectives  and  condemns  Attor- 


284    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ney  General  Palmer  for  his  activities  and  statements  about 
'  reds '  in  the  steel  strike.  This  is  its  basis  for  the  allegation 
that 

"Federal  oflScials,  particularly  the  Federal  Department  of  Justice, 
try  to  break  strikes." 

Next  the  Interchurch  Report  condemns  the  Senate 
Committee's  investigation  as  having 

"filled  the  strikers  with  a  bitterness  only  to  be  understood  by  detailed 
comparison  of  the  Committee's  report  and  the  facts. "     (Page  240) 

The  Interchurch  Report  next  condemns  the  use  of  armed 
forces  in  the  strike  area  and  particularly  the  use  of  the 
United  States  army  under  General  Leonard  Wood.  In 
order  to  show  that  the  use  of  armed  forces  was  entirely  un- 
necessary and  that  the  strikers  were  the  victims  rather 
than  the  cause  of  such  violence  as  there  was,  the  Inter- 
church Report  states  (page  241) : 

"The  strikers  made  frequent  complaints  of  violent  raids  carried  out 
by  bands  of  citizens  calling  themselves  Loyal  American  Leaguers, 
who  were  charged  with  clubbing  groups  of  strikers  on  street  corners  at 
nights.  A  crowd  of  strikers  leaving  a  mass  meeting  tried  to  pull  a  negro 
strike  breaker  off  a  street  car;  the  negro  was  slightly  injiu-ed  and  a 
number  of  strikers  were  clubbed.  On  this  case  of  'mob  violence'  .  .  . 
Indiana  state  guards  were  sent  in,  parades  were  forbidden. "  .  .  .  Ten 
thousand  strikers  held  a  parade  ...  in  disregard  of  the  guardsmen. 
"  On  this  second  case  of  mob  violence,  known  as  the  Outlaw  Parade,  the 
United  States  regulars  occupied  Gary  with  General  Wood  in  personal 
charge,  proclaiming  martial  law.  The  regulars  were  equipped  with 
bayonets  and  steel  helmets  and  the  force  included  many  trucks  mount- 
ing machine  guns  and  bringing  field  artillery. 

"General  Wood  declared  that  the  army  would  be  neutral.  He  es- 
tablished rules  in  regard  to  picketing. "  When  these  rules  were  broken, 
"strikers  would  be  arrested.  Delays  and  difficulties  would  attend  the 
release  of  these  men  from  jail  or  bull  pen."  The  feelings  of  the  steel 
workers  then  was  "that  local  and  national  government  not  only  was  not 
their  government,  i.e.  in  their  behalf,  but  was  government  in  behalf  of 
interests  opposing  theirs." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       285 
The  Interchurch  Report  (page  242)  next  accuses  the 

"Press  in  most  communities,"  because  it  "suppressed  or  colored  its 
records,  printed  advertisements  and  editorials  urging  the  strikers  to  go 
back,  denounced  the  strikers,  and  incessantly  misrepresented  the  facts. 
.  .  .  Foreign  language  papers  largely  followed  the  lead  of  the  English 
papers." 

In  regard  to  the  "pulpit,"  however,  the  Interchurch 
Report  plainly  hedges ;  it  states  (page  243) 

"Research  among  clergymen  revealed  a  large  minority  deeply  suspicious 
of  the  newspaper  version  of  the  strike,  but  ineflFective  for  organizing 
concerted  action  even  for  purposes  of  self -information."  It  however 
follows  Foster  at  least  to  the  point  of  stating  that  "where  some  clergy- 
man preached  or  wrote  against  the  strike  or  where  another  gift  to  a  local 
church  by  a  steel  company  became  public  .  .  .  the  workers'  attitude 
to  the  church  followed  these  few  individuals,  deeming  the  church  another 
strike  breaker, "  after  which  series  of  carefully  calculated  insinuations  is 
added  the  phrase,  "after  the  strike,  workers  generally  were  making  no 
effort  to  make  the  church  their  church, " 

Now  it  would  seem,  as  a  matter  of  plain  common  sense, 
that  these  very  facts — that  the  local  press  and  the  local 
churches  which  obviously  receive  their  support  in  far 
greater  proportion  from  steel  workers  than  from  steel  offi- 
cials— that  the  great  body  of  local  merchants  whose  cus- 
tomers were  obviously  in  far  greater  proportion  among  the 
steel  workers  than  among  steel  officials — that  local  Ameri- 
can legions  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  who  are  certainly  made  up  of 
a  far  greater  proportion  of  workers  than  capitalists — that 
foreign  language  papers  who  receive  their  entire  support 
from  the  lowest  ranks  of  the  workers,  were  admittedly  all 
thus  opposed  to  the  unionization  drive  and  the  strike, 
should  in  itself  raise  a  strong  presumption  that  all  these 
other  forces  of  society  in  close  touch  with  the  situation  and 
disinterested  or  naturally  sympathetic  to  the  worker,  were 
probably  right,  and  the  strike  leaders  and  their  minority 
following  probably  wrong.  Such  an  obviously  logical  pre- 
sumption from  the  facts,  however,  never  seem  to  have 


286    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

occurred   to   either   Mr.    Foster   or   to     the   Interchurch 
Report. 

As  regards  Mr.  Foster's  point  of  view  he  saw  in  such 
facts,  merely  another  argument  to  radical  labor  that  all 
society  was  against  them  and  must  be  fought  accord- 
ingly.    His  conclusions  from  these  facts  are  merely  that 

"  In  the  next  steel  strike, "  all  labor  must  unite,  and  fight  the  rest  of 
society  "with  such  a  combination  of  allied  steel,  mine  and  railroad  work- 
ers ..  •  (that  there  will  be)  small  likelihood  that  the  steel  companies 
or  the  public  at  large  would  consider  the  question  of  the  steel  workers' 
right  to  organize  of  sufficient  importance  to  fight  about."  {Great 
Steel  Strike,  page  239.) 

But  Mr.  Foster,  of  course,  is  frankly  a  radical  and,  on  his 
own  admission,  against  all  the  rest  of  society  and  against 
all  modern  social  institutions  and  on  his  own  admission  was 
organizing  labor  to  fight  the  rest  of  society  and  overthrow 
modern  social  institutions.  Foster's  conclusion,  therefore, 
that  when  all  the  rest  of  society  opposed  him  and  his  plans, 
all  the  rest  of  society  was  of  course  wrong,  is  at  least 
natural  and  understandable. 

The  Interchurch  Report  agrees  with  Mr.  Foster  that  when 
all  the  rest  of  society  opposed  his  steel  strike  plans,  all  the  rest 
of  society  was  wrong.  But  instead  of  following  Mr.  Foster 
in  openly  threatening  all  the  rest  of  society  with  the  power 
of  organized  labor  it  seeks  rather  to  point  out  to  and  warn 
all  the  rest  of  society  of  the  cost  of  defending  its  interests 
and  of  how  much  trouble  could  be  escaped  by  merely 
yielding  gracefully  to  Mr.  Foster  and  his  program.  It 
sprinkles  such  warnings  throughout  the  book,  and  uses 
all  of  Chapter  VII,  which  it  calls  "Social  Consequences," 
in  emphasising  and  siunmarizing  these  warnings. 

These  "social  consequences" — including  the  "degrada- 
tion, persisted  in  and  approved  by  public  opinion,  of  civil 
liberties" — which  the  whole  public  has  brought  upon  itself 
because  the  steel  companies  and  public  opinion  were  not 
willing  to  turn  the  steel  industry  over  to  the  collective 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       287 

bargaining  of  Mr.  Foster  and  his  fellow  strike  leaders,  the 
Interchurch  states  on  page  197  to  be  as  follows: 

"...  for  the  employers: 

"i.  'Discharging  workmen  for  unionism,'"  i.e.  for  agitation  during 
the  tmionization  drive. 

"2.  '  Black  lists' ' ' ;  that  is  keeping  a  list  of  radicals.agitators  and  other 
undesirables  and  exchanging  such  lists  with  each  other. 

"3.  'Espionage  and  the  hiring  of  labor  detective  agencies'  opera- 
tives." 

The  use  of  detectives,  the  Interchurch  Report  regards  as 
a  particularly  awful  "social  consequence."  It  practically 
always  refers  to  detectives  by  the  sinister  sounding  titles 
of  "under-cover  men"  or  "under-cover  spies"  just  as  it 
refers  to  the  police  as  "  cossacks."  It  spends  pages  in  prov- 
ing that  both  the  steel  companies  and  the  United  States 
Department  of  Justice  used  detectives  in  the  Steel  Strike 
and  that  they  sometimes  cooperated  with  each  other  and 
as  its  climax  of  this  frightful  accusation,  states  on  page  221 
in  italics,  that 

"These  company  spy  systems  carry  right  through  into  the  United 
States  Government.  Federal  immigration  authorities  testified  to  the 
Commission  that  raids  and  arrests  for  "  radicali?m  "  were  made  ...  on 
the  dentmciations  and  secret  reports  of  steel  company  '  under  cover '  men 
and  the  prisoners  turned  over  to  the  Department  of  Justice. " 

The  last  emphasized  dire  "social  consequence"  to  the 
employer  was — 

4.  The  necessity  for  hiring  "strike  breakers,  principally  n^:roes." 

These,  however,  are  only  the  social  consequences  to  the  em- 
ployer. Entirely  in  addition  to  them,  are  the  "social  con- 
sequences" which  the  whole  country  must  stiff er  because  of 
the  blind  unwillingness  of  the  steel  companies  and  public 
opinion,  to  give  Mr.  Foster  and  the  other  strike  leaders 
their  way  in  the  steel  industry.  These  "social  conse- 
quences" the  Interchurch  Report  goes  right  on  to  solemnly 
warn  the  whole  country,  are:     (Page  197) 


288       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

"  I.  The  abrogation  of  the  right  of  assembly,  the  suppression  of  free 
speech,  and  the  violation  of  personal  rights. 

"2.  The  use  of  state  police,  state  troops  and  of  the  United  States  army 
and  "the  expenditure  of  public  money." 

"3.  Such  activities  on  the  part  of  constituted  authorities  and  of  the 
Press  and  the  pulpit  as  to  make  the  workers  believe  that  these  forces 
opposed  labor." 

As  regards  this  whole  general  argument  as  to  the  dire 
"Social  Consequences"  to  employers  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
country  because  employers  and  all  other  interested  social 
forces  refused  to  give  Mr.  Foster  and  his  fellow  strike  leaders 
a  free  hand  in  the  steel  industry,  the  most  striking  thing  is 
its  remarkable  similarity  to  the  well-known  argument  of 
Wilhelm  II  that  the  rest  of  the  world  brought  all  the  conse- 
quences of  the  war  on  itself  by  not  quietly  and  peaceably 
permitting  him  to  do  anything  he  pleased. 

Certain  particular  arguments  on  this  subject,  however, 
because  of  the  way  they  are  advanced  and  repeated  and 
emphasized,  and  because  they  presimie  to  involve  a  dis- 
cussion of  fundamental  American  rights  deserve  special  at- 
tention. These  are  the  so-called  "Abrogation  of  the  Right 
of  Free  Speech,"  "  Police  Brutalities  "  and  "Judicial  Dis- 
crimination." 


CHAPTER  XXII 
"abrogation  of  the  right  of  free  speech  and  assembly" 

The  argument  of  the  Interchurch  Report  in  regard  to  the 
alleged  unwarranted  abrogation  of  the  right  of  free  speech 
and  assembly  by  local  authorities  during  the  steel  strike 
merits  detailed  consideration  not  only  because  of  the  em- 
phasis which  the  Interchurch  Report  places  on  it,  but 
because  the  whole  argument  touches  upon  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  questions  in  modem  democracy. 

Beyond  this  it  merits  particiilar  consideration  because 
of  the  fact  that  there  has  been  developed  in  recent  years  a 
system  of  organized  propaganda  which  has  been  persistently 
and  widely  disseminated  for  specific  ulterior  purposes  which 
propaganda  entirely  misrepresents  the  plain  law  and  the 
facts  in  regard  to  this  whole  subject. 

Freedom  of  speech  and  the  right  of  assembly  are  unques- 
tionably fundamental  American  rights,  constituting  one  of 
the  most  important  guarantees  of  American  liberty.  More- 
over there  are  perhaps  no  rights  which  Americans  have 
insisted  more  tenaciously  on  exercising  or  would  fight  more 
vigorously  to  protect,  if  they  were  actually  threatened. 

But  this  does  not  mean  that  these  rights  are  without 
limit.  On  the  contrary  they  are,  as  are  all  other  individual 
and  group  rights,  strictly  limited  by  the  superior  rights  of 
the  public  as  a  whole.  And  when  the  rights  of  free  speech 
and  assembly,  just  as  in  the  case  of  any  other  individual  or 
JP  28q 


290     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

group  rights,  come,  for  any  reason,  into  conflict  with  the 
superior  right  of  the  public  as  a  whole,  it  is  not  only  a  basic 
principle  of  our  law  but  is  a  basic  principle  of  democracy 
itself  that  this  individual  or  group  right  must  be  subor- 
dinated to  the  public  right.  For  any  theory  or  prac- 
tice which  puts  individual  or  group  rights  above  the 
public  rights  of  course  leads  directly  to  despotism  or 
anarchy. 

The  practical  exemplification  of  many  of  the  ways  in 
which  the  rights  of  free  speech  and  assembly  are  thus 
limited  is  a  matter  of  commonest  knowledge.  The  regula- 
tion that  the  soap-box  orator  may  not  indiscriminately 
collect  a  crowd  in  the  middle  of  a  main  thoroughfare  and 
block  traffic  is  of  course  a  limitation  on  the  right  of  free 
speech  on  the  part  of  the  orator  and  his  listeners,  in  favor 
of  the  greater  right  of  the  public  to  pass  uninterruptedly 
up  and  down  its  own  thoroughfare.  There  are  many  similar 
limitations  of  the  rights  of  free  speech  and  assembly,  estab- 
lished and  enforced  in  proportion  as  the  exercise  of  the  in- 
dividual right  in  the  given  circimistances  would  endanger 
the  free  enjoyment  of  the  greater  rights  of  the  public. 
Such  limitations  therefore  vary  with  circumstances.  Limi- 
tations are  enforced  as  to  main  thoroughfares  which  are  not 
enforced  as  to  side  streets ;  in  large  communities  which  would 
be  unnecessary  in  small  communities;  special  limitations 
are  frequently  set  in  time  of  fire,  flood,  riot  or  other  exi- 
gencies, so  that  what  may  be  done  or  said  under  ordinary 
circimistances  may  not  be  done  or  said  under  those  exi- 
gencies. Under  many  circumstances  a  man  might  have  the 
right  to  call  out  the  word  "fire"  but  to  call  out  "fire"  in  a 
crowded  theatre  when  there  was  no  fire,  would  constitute 
an  obvious  crime.  A  man  may  freely  express  criticism  of 
the  government's  policy  under  ordinary  circumstances 
which  if  expressed  in  time  of  war,  might,  by  giving  aid  to  the 
public  enemy,  constitute  a  crime  against  the  public  welfare. 
No  man  of  course  may  carry  his  individual  right  of  free 
speech  to  the  extent  of  counselling  or  urging  crime. 


/ 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       291 

Perhaps  the  most  frequent  occasion  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual right  of  free  speech  may  come  into  conflict  with  the 
superior  rights  of  the  pubHc  is  under  circtimstances  in  which 
the  unlimited  exercise  of  this  right  would  subvert  or  en- 
danger the  public  peace.  As  a  matter  of  fact  from  the 
beginning  of  our  history  and  back  into  the  earlier  history  of 
the  common  law,  the  conflict  between  the  right  of  free 
speech  and  the  public  right  to  peace  and  order,  has  been  so 
recurrent  and  the  law  in  such  cases  is  so  firmly  established 
that  the  very  legal  definitions  of  the  right  of  free  speech 
have  almost  invariably  included  the  statement  of  this  par- 
ticular limitation. 

Justice  Story,  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  our  constitutional 
authorities  years  ago  defined  this  fundamental  but  not 
unlimited  right  of  free  speech  to  mean  that : 

"Every  man  shall  have  a  right  to  speak,  write  or  print  his  opinions 
upon  any  subject  whatever,  without  any  prior  restraint,  so  always  that 
he  does  not  injure  any  other  person  in  his  rights,  person,  property 
or  reputation ;  and  so  always  that  he  does  not  thereby  disturb  the  public 
peace  or  attempt  to  subvert  the  government."  (Story,  Commentaries 
on  the  Constitution,  Sect.  1874.) 

Moreover  it  is  plain  fundamental  law  as  well  as  plain 
justice  and  common  sense  that  where  there  is  a  question  as 
to  whether  or  not  the  exercise  of  the  individual  right  of  free 
speech  does,  under  a  given  condition,  endanger  the  public 
peace  or  otherwise  conflict  with  the  superior  rights  of  the 
public,  the  right  to  decide  that  question  shall  rest  with  the 
public  and  not  with  the  individual  or  individuals  in  the  case. 
If  the  rule  were  otherwise,  and  each  soap  box  orator  for 
instance,  or  the  group  which  at  the  time  were  interested 
in  listening  to  him,  had  the  authority  to  decide  whether  or 
not  the  exercise  of  their  individual  right  of  assembly  under 
the  circumstances  was  in  conflict  with  the  right  of  the  public 
to  use  the  streets  freely,  there  would  of  course  be  no  limita- 
tions whatever  to  the  exercise  of  such  individual  rights  and 
the  public  right  would  be  made  subordinate  instead  of 


292     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

superior;  which  of  course  is  incompatible  with  the  whole 
theory  of  democracy. 

But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  equally  against  our  theory  of 
democracy  that  any  majority,  no  matter  how  great,  merely 
because  it  is  a  majority  and  has  the  power,  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  construe  its  rights  as  greater  than  they  actually 
are,  or  otherwise  to  limit  individual  rights  where  they  do 
not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  conflict  with  the  public  rights. 
Therefore  the  courts  will  always  carefully  review  the  actual 
facts  in  any  case  of  alleged  conflict  between  the  rights  of 
individuals  and  the  right  of  the  public,  and  if  it  finds,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  that  they  do  not  actually  conflict,  it  will 
uphold  the  individual  in  his  rights  and  enjoin  the  public, 
through  its  duly  elected  public  ofiicials  or  otherwise,  from 
any  unwarranted  infringement  of  individual  rights. 

In  the  question  of  the  fundamental  rights  of  free  speech 
and  assembly  and  their  alleged  abrogation  during  the  steel 
strike  two  other  basic  principles  of  law  are  involved  and 
must  be  considered. 

Since  1842,  the  courts  without  the  aid  of  any  legislative 
enactments  have  recognized  the  "right  to  withhold  labor," 
i.e.,  the  right  to  strike,  as  a  legitimate  economic  weapon. 
A  strike  in  its  essence,  is  an  agreement  among  a  number  of 
individuals  to  withhold  their  labor.  It  is  generally  the 
specific  purpose  of  this  agreement  to  injure  the  employer 
as  a  means  of  forcing  him  to  accede  to  the  demands  of  the 
workers.  An  agreement  to  act  in  concert  to  cause  injury 
to  a  third  party  is  generally  regarded  as  a  conspiracy  and 
ipso  facto  illegal.  Therefore  in  recognizing  the  right  to 
strike  the  courts  have  modified  the  law  of  conspiracy  in 
favor  of  labor.  Labor  itself  has  widely  and  loudly  criticized 
the  courts  for  what  it  calls  their  assimiption  of  legislative 
function.  It  is,  therefore,  interesting  to  note  that  perhaps 
never  in  any  other  connection  have  the  courts  more  clearly 
"made  law"  or  made  law  involving  more  fundamental  and 
sweeping  changes  than  in  this  case  of  the  recognition  of  the 
right  to  strike, — a  change  wholly  in  favor  of  labor. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       293 

During  the  rapid  rise  of  industrialism  in  the  first  part  of 
the  last  century,  in  the  same  period  when  the  use  of  the 
strike  as  an  economic  weapon  was  being  developed  and 
recognized  by  law,  there  arose  in  Europe  a  strong  movement, 
led  by  the  Russian  anarchists  Bakounin  and  NechayefiE,  that 
insisted  that  the  strike  should  not  be  used  merely  as  an 
economic  weapon  of  competition  with  the  employer  for  a 
fair  share  in  the  proceeds  of  industry,  but  should  be  used  as 
a  weapon  to  overthrow  the  employer  and  seize  the  control 
of  industry.  This  movement  insisted  that  violence  con- 
stituted a  part  of  the  strike  weapon  and  was  necessary  to 
make  it  really  effective. 

For  a  generation  this  movement  fought  for,  and  for  con- 
siderable periods  held  control  of  at  least  the  European 
continental  labor  movement.  To  it  later  was  added  the 
influence  of  the  Syndicalists  who  had  the  same  views  as  to 
violence  and  from  time  to  time  the  I.  W.  W.  and  other  forms 
of  radicalism.  Partly  as  a  result  of  the  constant  agitation 
of  such  doctrines  and  partly  as  a  result  of  the  tendency  of 
human  nature  to  use  the  most  effective  means  possible  to 
its  ends,  there  is  no  question  that  labor's  theory  of  the  strike 
has  been  permeated  with  the  notion  that  the  right  to  strike 
involves  the  right  to  indulge  in  at  least  the  minor  forms  of 
intimidation  or  violence. 

The  law,  however,  under  no  circtmistances  recognizes 
any  right  to  commit  violence  great  or  small.  The  man  who 
commits  or  threatens  murder  is  of  course  more  severely 
punished  by  the  law  than  the  man  who  commits  or  threatens 
mild  bodily  injury.  But  the  law  does  not  recognize  the 
right  to  commit  mild  violence  any  more  than  it  recognizes 
the  right  to  commit  murder.  Thus,  when  exercising  their 
entirely  legal  right  to  strike,  workers  have  no  more  right  to 
commit  the  mildest  forms  of  intimidation  or  violence  than 
they  have  to  commit  the  most  serious  violence.  When 
therefore  the  law  condemns  and  punishes  or  enjoins  the 
committing  of  any  form  of  violence  during  a  strike  that 
does  not  mean  that  the  law  is  denying  the  right  to  strike 


294    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

any  more  than  the  fact  that  the  law  would  punish  a  man  for 
breaking  windows  as  he  passed  down  the  street,  would  mean 
that  the  law  was  denying  him  his  right  to  walk  down  the 
street. 
The  niles  of  law  involved  then  are  plain  and  simple: 

1.  All  Americans  have  the  fundamental  rights  offre  speech 
and  assembly  so  long  as  the  way  or  the  conditions  under  which 
they  exercise  those  rights  do  not  infringe  the  greater  rights  of 
the  public; 

2.  The  public  has  the  right  to  judge,  through  its  duly  con- 
stituted officials,  whether  or  not  in  a  given  case  the  exercise  of 
those  individual  rights  would  conflict  with  the  public  right; 

J.  But  the  law  at  the  same  time  very  plainly  guards  against 
majority  or  official  tyranny  and  will  carefully  review  the  facts 
in  any  given  case  and  if  the  facts  do  not  show  that  the  authori- 
ties were  warranted  in  believing  that  the  exercise  of  the  indi- 
vidual rights  would  jeopardize  public  rights,  it  will  protect  the 
individuals  in  the  exercise  of  these  rights; 

4.  The  courts  clearly  recognize  the  right  to  strike; 

5.  They  do  not  recognize  the  right  of  strikers,  any  more  than 
any  other  persons  to  commit  or  threaten  violence,  and  they 
refuse  to  admit,  in  the  case  of  strikers  as  in  all  other  cases,  that 
anyone  can  have  the  right  to  commit  a  crime  merely  on  the 
grounds  that  it  is  a  small  crime; 

— ^which  basic  law  will  doubtless  appear  to  average  Ameri- 
cans as  also  the  plainest  common  justice  and  common  sense. 
During  the  steel  strike  the  authorities  in  various  com- 
munities involved  placed  certain  limitations  on  the  rights 
of  the  strikers  to  hold  meetings.  These  limitations  varied. 
In  some  cases  merely  open  air  meetings  were  prohibited. 
In  others  it  was  specifically  required  that  all  speeches  be 
in  English.  In  some  cases  all  strikers'  meetings  were  finally 
prohibited.  In  each  case  these  various  limitations  were 
established  on  the  specific  grounds  that  violence  had 
occurred  or  was  threatened  and  the  public  peace  was  thereby 
endangered.  The  Interchurch  Report  contends,  as  the 
strike  leaders  contended  at  the  time,  that  these  limitations 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       295 

infringed  the  strikers'  rights  of  free  speech  and  assembly. 
They  further  contended  that  such  regulations  were  un- 
warranted by  the  conditions — that  the  r^al  reason  for  their 
being  enforced  was  not  because  of  fear  of  violence  but 
because  of  an  alleged  relation  between  the  public  officials 
and  the  steel  companies.  This  last  contention,  however, 
which  the  Interchurch  Report  makes  very  strongly,  it  fails 
to  reconcile  with  its  other  equally  strong  contention,  already 
referred  to  in  detail,  that  Church,  Press,  Business  associa- 
tions and  all  other  forces  of  society  in  the  strike  areas  were 
equally  against  the  strike  and  that  therefore  the  officials  at 
least  represented  overwhelming  public  opinion. 

Moreover  the  strike  leaders  at  once  took  the  case  to  the 
courts,  advancing  substantially  the  same  arguments  the 
Interchurch  Report  advances.  But  in  every  case,  the  courts 
held  that  the  local  officials,  because  of  the  special  circum- 
stances in  each  case,  were  entirely  within  their  rights.  The 
labor  leaders  carried  one  of  these  cases — doubtless  the  one 
they  considered  strongest — to  the  Supreme  Court  of  Penn- 
sylvania, which  court  held  (City  of  Duquesne  vs.  Fincke; 
112  Atl.  130  Pa.)  that: 

"A  strike  was  on  which  divided  even  the  working  men  into  opposing 
factions  and  thus  gave  to  those  agitators  who  are  the  enemies  of  all 
government  the  opportunity,  which  they  eagerly  seized,  to  stir  up  strife 
and  disorder  by  distributing  anonymous  and  seditious  pamphlets 
throughout  the  city;  and  hence,  as  the  Mayor  was  responsible  for  the 
maintenance  of  peace  and  good  order,  he  was  justified,  if  he  believed  the 
public  good  required  it,  as  he  says  he  did,  to  refuse  an  open  air  meeting 
at  this  particular  time.  .  .  .  The  liberty  of  speech  does  not  require  that 
the  clear  legal  rights  of  the  whole  community  shall  he  violated." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  in  its  second  volume  the  Interchurch 
Report  admits  (page  164)  that: 

"A  well-known  attorney  has  stated  that  there  is  no  legal  escape  from 
either  of  these  restrictions  {i.e.  refusing  or  revoking  permits  for  meet- 
ings), since  the  city  ordinances  regulating  meetings  have  been  tested 
and  found  constitutional,  and  the  Sheriffs'  proclamation  can  be  at- 
tacked only  on  the  ground  that  the  situation  did  not  warrant  it.    With 


296    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  local  officials  of  the  same  mind  as  the  Sheriff,  as  they  were  in  this 
case,  it  would  be  practically  impossible  to  prove  in  court  that  the 
sheriff's  action  was  imwarranted. " 

As  a  matter  of  plain  logic  then,  the  Interchurch  Report 
can  only  argue  to  its  conclusion,  that  the  meetings  shovdd 
not  have  been  thus  limited,  on  one  of  three  grounds : 

1 .  That  the  rights  of  free  speech  and  assembly  should  be 
absolute  irrespective  of  the  fact  that  it  may  endanger  the 
public  peace,  or — which  amounts  to  the  same  thing; 

2.  That  the  power  of  deciding  whether  or  not  such  meet- 
ings endangered  the  peace  of  the  public  should  be  taken  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  duly  elected  officials  of  the  community 
and  turned  over  to  the  individuals  who  wanted  to  hold  such 
meetings,  who  in  most  cases  were  not  even  citizens  of  the 
community;  or 

3.  That  the  courts  decisions  in  these  cases  were,  either 
through  error  or  bias  on  the  part  of  the  court,  against  the 
actual  facts. 

The  Interchurch  Report  assumes  to  condemn  the  limita- 
tions of  strikers'  meetings  on  this  third  ground,  that  such 
limitations  were  not  warranted  by  the  facts,  but  actually 
throughout  this  argtmient  it  obviously  tries  to  argue  to  its 
conclusions  on  all  three  grounds. 

Before  analyzing  the  specific  Interchurch  argument, 
however,  which  is  based  on  only  part  of  the  facts,  and  on  a 
very  special  interpretation  and  explanation  of  each  of  those 
facts,  consideration  should  be  given  to  certain  phases  of  the 
general  situation  which  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not 
consider,  and  certain  facts  should  be  stated  which  the  Inter- 
chiu"ch  Report  does  not  state,  but  all  of  which  doubtless 
had  a  determining  influence  on  the  decisions  reached  by 
local  public  opinion,  local  officials  and  the  courts,  which 
decisions  the  Interchurch  Report  is  condemning. 

New  York  witnessed  a  milk  strike,  in  the  Fall  of  1921  in 
which  every  milk  driver  who  remained  on  his  job,  carried 
his  life  in  his  hands,  in  which  women  were  followed  and 
intimidated  merely  for  buying  milk  for  their  children,  and 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       297 

in  which  40  strikers  were  arrested  for  violence  in  a  single 
day. 

Chicago,  at  about  the  same  time,  witnessed  a  packers' 
strike  in  which  the  strikers  seized  housetops  from  which  to 
fire  into  the  crowds  of  workers  and  went  to  other  similar 
extremes  of  violence.  The  whole  country  knows  of  the ' '  war 
in  Mingo"  in  which  thousands  of  union  men  armed  with 
rifles  and  machine  guns,  marched  into  West  Virginia 
seizing  train  and  private  automobiles  and  private  supplies 
of  all  kinds,  and  otherwise  depleting  the  country  like  an 
enemy  army  on  their  march.  In  other  words  the  whole 
country  has  long  been  forced  to  recognize  that  great  strikes 
and  violence  frequently  if  not  usually  go  hand  in  hand. 

In  the  industrial  districts  of  western  Pennsylvania  a 
great  strike  is  likely  to  involve  a  far  greater  proportion  of 
the  poptdation  than  in  New  York  or  Chicago  and  is  there- 
fore a  matter  of  far  greater  public  concern. 

Foster,  in  his  book,  The  Great  Steel  Strike,  speaks  on  page 
II  of  the  great  Homestead  steel  strike  of  1892  as  charac- 
terized by  "extreme  bitterness  and  violence."  He  em- 
phasizes the  bitterness  with  which  the  steel  strike  of  1909 
was  fought.  The  Interchurch  Report  on  page  4  speaks  of 
the  Homestead  strike  as  being  "with  guns  and  flames." 
The  Homestead  strike  was  spoken  of  in  the  Senate  investi- 
gation as  running  red  with  blood. 

Particularly  in  the  old  steel  towns,  therefore,  responsible 
citizens  and  officials  could  hardly  be  expected  to  forget 
the  blood  and  guns  and  flames  of  former  steel  strikes. 

In  191 9  they  knew  that  the  conspicuous  leader  of  the  new 
strike  was  Foster  who  had  widely  published  his  opinions 
that  "whether  his  tactics  be  legal  and  moral  or  not  does  not 
concern  him  so  long  as  they  are  effective" — that  "he  al- 
lows no  consideration  of  legality,  religion,  patriotism, 
honour,  duty,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  adoption  of  effec- 
tive tactics,"  etc.,  etc.  They  knew  that  the  nominal  leader 
of  the  strikers  was  John  Fitzpatrick,  local  head  of  the  labor 
unions  in  Chicago  where  labor  corruption  and  violence  has 


298     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

perhaps  reached  its  high  water  mark.  Mother  Jones  whose 
trail  of  violence  and  bloodshed  through  past  labor  conflicts 
was  common  knowledge  appeared  early  on  the  scene.- 
They  knew  from  frequent  past  experience  how  crowds  of 
ignorant  foreigners  are  susceptible  of  having  their  mass 
psychology  whipped  to  a  frenzy  by  clever  agitators.  These 
very  definite  facts  and  experiences  were  the  basis  on  which 
many  local  citizens  and  public  officials,  who  themselves 
would  have  to  meet  the  situation  and  whose  own  cities 
would  have  to  pay  the  price  if  violence  did  occur,  were  led 
to  conclude  that  strike  meetings  under  these  circumstances 
would  probably  endanger  the  public  peace. 

If  therefore,  local  public  opinion  and  local  officials  in 
many  cases  in  the  steel  strike  did,  and  local  public  opinion 
and  local  officials  in  general  often  do,  believe  that  the  very 
existence  or  prospect  of  a  great  strike  raises  a  prestunption 
of  violence;  and  if,  acting  on  this  presimiption  such  officials 
and  local  public  opinion  believe  it  is  necessary  to  limit  the 
holding  of  strikers'  meetings  during  such  times;  and  if 
organized  labor  and  the  Interchurch  Report  believe  that 
labor's  interests  are  thereby  prejudiced,  they  have  only 
labor  itself,  and  its  present  as  well  as  its  past  record  to 
blame. 

But  local  officials  in  many  cases  in  the  steel  strike,  did 
not  have  to  base  their  decision  as  to  the  likelihood  of 
violence  in  the  steel  strike  on  merely  past  experience. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  agitation  had  been  going  on 
among  the  steel  workers  for  nearly  a  year  before  the  strike 
and  that  during  August  and  September  it  was  cleverly 
brought  to  a  climax  by  means  that  have  already  been 
described. 

The  Senate  Hearings,  page  888  and  succeeding  pages, 
presents  a  number  of  affidavits  from  the  Mayor  and  leading 
citizens  of  McKeesport,  Pennsylvania, — where  the  limita- 
tion of  meetings  is  specifically  condemned  by  the  Interchurch 
Report — stating  that  on  September  2nd,  three  weeks  before 
the  strike,   a  crowd   consisting   of   4000  foreigners  had 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       299 

marched  to  the  local  police  station  and  threatened  to 
destroy  it,  and  had  made  other  threats  as  it  marched  from 
point  to  point  in  the  city. 

On  page  885  and  succeeding  pages  of  the  Senate  Hearings 
appear  affidavits  and  petitions  signed  by  large  niimbers  of 
ministers, .  doctors,  merchants,  lawyers,  business  men  and 
men  of  all  walks  of  life,  of  Donora,  Pa.,  stating  that  mobs, 
in  one  instance  of  3000  foreigners,  largely  armed,  were 
marching  through  the  city  and  that  already  there  had  been 
"several  clashes  between  the  authorities  and  these  foreign- 
ers." These  petitions  particularly  requested  the  help  of 
the  state  constabulary. 

That  inflammatory  propaganda  was  being  widely  dis- 
seminated at  this  time  is  specifically  declared  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  quotation  appearing 
above.  The  exact  nature  of  much  of  such  propaganda  that 
was  openly  radical  is  shown  by  reproductions  of  voluminous 
quotations  from  it  in  the  Senate  Hearings  pages  912  and 
succeeding  pages,  948  and  succeeding  pages,  etc. 

Such  inflammatory  propaganda,  however,  counselling 
extreme  violence,  was  not  limited  to  the  radicals.  Follow- 
ing are  excerpts  from  a  " Manifesto"  by  a  prominent  mem- 
ber of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  widely  circulated  some  three  weeks 
before  the  strike  (see  Senate  Hearings  page  670  to  672). 

"HOW  TO  WIN  A  STRIKE" 
(By  Bob  Edwards  of  Martins  Ferry,  member  Amalgajnated  Association.) 

*'  Now  that  the  steel  workers  of  the  United  States  are  on  the  verge  of 
a  tremendous  struggle,  a  strike  that  will  decide  for  the  coming  years 
whether  the  steel  workers  are  to  remain  wage  slaves  or  freemen,  it  be- 
hooves every  worker  who  has  the  welfare  of  his  class  at  heart  to  devote 
the  entire  powers  of  his  mind  and  intellect  to  study  and  devise  a  means, 
a  strategic  plan,  by  which  the  forces  of  labor  can  win  the  conquest  with 
the  consequent  defeat  and  demoralization  and,  we  hope,  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  enemies'  powers  of  resistance.  A  strike  of  workers 
in  this  period  is  an  actual  declaration  of  war  between  the  proletariate 
(the  workers)  and  the  capitalist;  between  a  system  of  cooperation  and  a 
system  of  exploitation;  between  right  and  wrong;  between  humanity 


300    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

and  brutality  in  short,  between  all  that  is  noble  and  elevating  and  that 
which  is  debasing  and  low.  A  strike  is  war,  because  all  the  horrors  of  the 
battlefield  are  repeated  in  a  strike — men  killed,  homes  disrupted,  noble 
and  conscientious  workers  put  on  the  list  of  tramps  and  imdesirable 
citizens.  .  .  . 

A  strike  then  is  war,  and  war  recognizes  one  end — the  imposition  of  the 
will  of  the  conqueror  upon  that  of  the  vanquished.  To  do  this  properly 
we  must  so  manipulate  and  direct  otu-  forces  that  the  offensive  must 
immediately  be  taken,  so  that  the  struggle  will  be  short  but  strenuous. 

Second  plan  is  to  change  the  ownership  of  the  means  of  producing 
the  stock  of  wealth  of  the  capitalist.  This  plan  is  the  most  reasonable 
and  logical  that  can  be  adopted  and  will  do  away  with  and  eliminate 
the  hardships,  brutalities,  and  killing  that  is  incident  and  inevitable 
in  all  strikes  and  particularly  so  in  the  coming  struggle. 

If  the  representatives  of  the  United  States  government  do  not  see 
fit  to  take  over  the  steel  industry  and  control  and  use  it  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people,  then  let  them  keep  hands  off  in  the  coming  struggle  and  be 
an  impartial  observer  of  the  conflict.  .  .  . 

When  a  community  is  in  a  state  of  anarchy,  the  individual  man  must 
take  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  and  defend  his  life  and  his  rights  with 
violence,  if  need  be. 

When  armed  thugs  and  strike  breakers  are  imported  into  a  community, 
that  community  is  in  a  state  of  anarchy  and  every  individual  is  fully 
empowered  to  take  up  arms  and  defend  his  life  and  rights." 

Affidavits  through  pages  902  to  906  of  the  Senate  Hear- 
ings recite  instances  of  attacks  on  poHce  officers  with  bottles, 
clubs,  and  pepper,  by  mobs,  or  individual  men  or  women 
from  mobs  of  strikers. 

Senate  Hearings  pages  806  to  809  also  by  specific  quota- 
tion of  official  proclamations  and  other  records,  show  the 
methods  by  which  such  very  obvious  threats  or  actual 
breaches  of  the  public  peace  were  met  by  the  officials  and 
united  public  action. 

Quite  characteristically  however,  the  Interchurch  Report 
does  not  mention  any  of  this  Senate  evidence  or  refer  to  the 
facts  which  it  brings  out.  In  several  instances,  it  makes  a 
strong  point  of  the  fact  that  orders  prohibiting  strikers' 
meetings  were  issued  before  the  strike  began.  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  threatening  and  violence  was  begun  long  before 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       301 

the  date  of  the  strike,  this  argument  is  obviously  a  mere 
quibble. 

It  will  doubtless  be  remembered  that  the  Interchurch 
Report  particularly  insists  in  its  introduction  on  page  4  that 
the  1 91 9  steel  strike  was  "without  violence"  and  though  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  mentions  violence  frequently — the  "gun 
riot"  at  Wheeling  (page  181),  the  "mob  violence"  at  Gary 
(page  241)  and  frequently  "slight  riots, "  or  "almost  riots" 
or  "riots  with  no  serious  consequences,"  it  nevertheless 
insists  in  general  throughout  this  argument  that  there  was 
no  violence  or  at  least  not  sufficient  violence  to  warrant 
suppression  of  strikers'  meetings,  and  it  insists  particularly 
that  where  there  was  violence,  it  was  not  because  of  strikers' 
meetings  and  where  there  were  strikers'  meetings,  there 
was  no  violence. 

Disregarding  the  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Report  makes 
no  mention  of  the  volimiinous  Senate  evidence  in  regard  to 
threats,  intimidation  and  actual  violence,  and  considering 
merely  the  evidence  and  argtunent  which  it  itself  advances 
to  support  its  contention  that  where  there  was  violence  it 
was  not  because  of  strikers  meetings  and  where  there  were 
strikers'  meetings  there  was  no  violence — taking  that  argu- 
ment paragraph  by  paragraph  and  merely  discounting  cer- 
tain tricks  of  phraseology  and  quibbles  the  essential  facts, 
as  there  stated,  show  (Interchurch  Report,  Vol,  II,  page  165 
and  succeeding  pages) : 

At  Braddock,  meetings  were  allowed  till  a  crowd  of 
strikers  gathered  at  a  mill  gate  and  precipitated  a  street 
fight. 

At  Duquesne  there  were  no  meetings  and  no  serious 
violence. 

At  McKeesport,  permits  to  hold  ordinary  meetings  were 
granted  but  denied  for  one  particular  meeting  because  of 
particular  circimistances  and  immediately  there  was  a  riot. 

At  Homestead  there  were  meetings  and  there  was  violence. 

In  each  of  these  cases  then,  the  simple  facts  are  directly 
to  the  contrary  of  the  Interchurch  Report's  argument.    In 


302     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

each  case  however  the  Interchurch  Report  has  some  particu- 
lar explanation — ^the  "riot  had  no  serious  consequences," 
a  nimiber  of  men  had  merely  been  beaten  up  but  no  one  was 
actually  killed,  the  violence  did  not  occur  at  the  meeting 
or  as  a  direct  result  of  the  meeting,  etc.,  etc. 

In  other  words,  in  each  case,  where  there  were  meetings 
the  Interchurch  Report  admits  the  violence  but  insists 
upon  substituting  itself,  just  as  the  strike  leaders  insisted  on 
substituting  themselves,  in  place  of  the  responsible  public 
officials  and  the  courts  as  the  judge  of  whether  or  not  the 
violence  was  sufficient  to  endanger  the  public  peace. 

In  the  next  chapter  it  will  appear  by  quotation  from 
numerous  of  the  Interchurch  Report's  "  500  rock  bottom 
affidavits"  that  when  duly  elected  public  officials  or  police 
officials,  in  searching  houses  for  arms  "disregarded  the 
presence  of  mother  and  child.  They  entered  the  house  to 
search.  They  tore  down  the  curtains,  and  broke  the  flower- 
pots and  overturned  the  chairs  .  .  .  because  of  the  terroriza- 
tion  the  children  didn't  sleep  that  night" — because  officers 
similarly  searching  for  arms  used  a  hatchet  in  opening  a 
trunk  and  scattered  the  clothes  around — because  an  officer, 
obviously  refused  admission  by  a  woman  swung  her  roughly 
against  the  door — because  various  men  were  fined  $5  or  $10 
for  things  they  themselves  said  they  didn't  do — because  a 
man  who  was  arrested  didn't  get  his  dinner  on  time — be- 
cause Trachn  Yechenke  was  arrested  in  connection  with  the 
shooting  of  Peter  Luke  even  after  he  himself  had  told  the 
officers  he  didn't  do  it ;  the  Interchurch  Report  features  such 
"police  brutalities"  in  special  affidavits  as  " a  degradation, 
persistent  and  approved  by  public  opinion,  of  civil  liberties." 

It  is  correspondingly  interesting  therefore,  to  speculate 
in  connection  with  this  present  Interchiurch  argtunent  as  to 
just  how  large  a  strikers'  riot  would  have  to  be,  or  just  how 
many  people  would  have  to  be  "actually  killed"  by  the 
strikers  to  constitute  what  the  Interchurch  Report  wotild 
regard  as  a  breach  of,  or  even  a  serious  threat,  to  the  public 
peace. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       303 

The  Interchurch  Report  continues  its  argtunent  (page 
166  and  167)  by  mentioning  three  localities  where  meetings 
were  allowed  and  where  it  alleges  no  violence  ocairred, 
"at  the  meeting"  or  "during  the  assemblies."  These  were 
Johnstown,  Pa.,  Farrell,  Pa.,  and  Wheeling,  W.  Va.  The 
specific  degree  of  violence  that  occurred  at  or  away  from  the 
meetings  at  these  particular  places,  does  not  seem  to  be  a 
matter  of  public  record.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Inter- 
church Report  itself  speaks  incidentally  (page  181)  of  the 
"gun  riot "  at  Wheeling,  and  two  statements,  one  made  by  a 
local  ex-Senator  appearing  in  the  Senate  Hearings  (page 
884  and  885)  refer  indirectly  to  the  attempt  at  violence  in 
Farrell. 

The  Interchurch  Report  then  makes  the  same  statement 
in  regard  to  Steubensville,  Youngstown  and  Cleveland, 
localities  whose  record  for  violence  during  the  strike,  is  a 
matter  of  public  record. 

At  the  bottom  of  page  167,  Part  II,  the  Interchurch 
Report  says* 

"In  Steubensville,  O.,  .  .  .  three  or  four  meetings  were  held  every 
week.  No  disturbance  of  any  sort  ever  occurred  in  this  town  .  .  .  perfect 
peace  was  maintained  throughout  this  district  both  at  the  public  meetings 
and  on  the  picket  lines. " 

The  Senate  Investigation  (pages  472  and  473),  however, 
emphasized  conspicuously  and  in  detail  and  published 
copies  of  the  public  records  of  the  action  that  it  was 
necessary  for  the  governors  of  West  Virginia  and  Ohio  to 
take  to  prevent  5000  of  these  same  Steubensville  strikers 
from  carrying  out  a  resolution  which  they  passed  at  one  of 
these  strike  meetings  to  march  over  en  masse  into  West 
Virginia  and  attack  1000  workers  at  Weirton  who  had  re- 
fused to  strike.  It  seems  strange  that  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port which  quotes  so  freely  Senate  evidence  that  may  be 
interpreted  in  favor  of  the  strikers  should  have  so  com- 
pletely overlooked  all  the  evidence  in  regard  to  such  a  con- 
spicuous case  of  the  direct  relation  between  the  holding  of  a 


304    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

strikers'  meeting  and  violence  or  is  it  depending  on  the 
qtiibble  that  the  prompt  action  of  the  governors  of  two 
states  prevented  the  program  of  violence  which  was  speci- 
fically adopted  at  the  meeting  from  being  actually  carried 
out? 

In  the  next  paragraph  on  page  i68,  the  Interchurch 
Report  states  that  at  Youngstown,  Ohio, 

"  On  an  average,  nine  mass  meetings  a  week  were  held.  At  none  of  these 
meetings  was  there  ever  any  necessity  for  police  intervention  and  at  no 
time  was  there  any  disturbance  at  a  meeting. " 

The  Senate  Investigation  on  the  other  hand  on  pages  309 
to  316  lays  special  emphasis  on  the  amount  of  intimida- 
tion and  threatening  and  stoning  of  American  workers  by 
foreign  strikers  at  Youngstown  and  particularly  emphasizes 
that  the  only  attempt  to  interfere  with  a  meeting  in  Youngs- 
town was  when  the  strikers  themselves  stoned  a  meeting  of 
Americans  who  remained  at  work. 

In  the  next  paragraph,  the  Interchurch  Report  states: 

"  In  Cleveland,  O.  .  .  .  from  3  to  6  meetings  were  held  daily  from  the 
beginning  of  the  strike  .  .  .  no  trouble  of  any  nature  developed." 

Ex-Governor  Joseph  F.  Brown  of  Georgia  has  made  a 
special  study  of  violence  in  the  1919  steel  strike  from  original 
public  records,  affidavits,  and  other  specific  data  available 
to  any  responsible  investigator  and  much  of  which  was 
widely  published  at  the  time.  His  study  has  also  been  pub' 
lished in  a  pamphlet  entitled,  "The  Threatened  Strike  in  the 
Steel  Plants. ' '  This  record  for  violence  in  Cleveland  include 
such  attacks  on  non-striking  workers  as  follows : 

C.  Brailey  attacked  evening  of  September  23rd  by  four  men — laid  up 
for  about  3  weeks; 

J.  Galganski  attacked  evening  of  September  23rd  on  way  to  work — 
jaw  broken — laid  up  for  several  weeks; 

4  colored  employees  attacked  September  24th  by  crowd  of  strikers — 
escaped  to  street  car  but  were  followed  and  pulled  off — one  sustained 
broken  arm,  two  cuts  and  bruises; 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       305 

Henry  Arps,  65  years  old,  knocked  down  and  beaten  by  striking 
wire  drawer  November  13th  while  on  way  home  from  work; 

and  17  other  Cleveland  steel  workers  who  did  not  strike  similarly 
beaten  or  stabbed  or  shot  in  Cleveland  during  this  short  period. 

Either  the  Interchurch  Report  regards  this  as  "no 
trouble  of  any  nature"  or  else  it  is  basing  its  whole  argument 
that  the  strikers'  meetings  which  were  held  did  not  result  in 
violence  and  therefore  public  officials  elsewhere  were  not 
justified  in  prohibiting  or  stopping  strikers'  meetings  on  the 
mere  quibble  that  the  violence  did  not  occur  in  the  meeting 
itself. 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  its  main  volume  mentions 
only  one  strikers'  meeting.     On  pages  240  and  241  it  says: 

"At  Gary  .  .  .  agreements  .  .  .  were  reached  with  the  city  authori- 
ties concerning  picket  line  rules.  Huge  mass  meetings  were  held  in  the 
open  air  ...  a  crowd  of  strikers  leaving  a  mass  meeting  tried  to  ptdl  a 
negro  strike  breaker  off  a  street  car:  the  negro  was  slightly  injured. 
.  .  .  On  this  case  of  violence,  the  only  one  allied,  Indiana 
state  guards  were  sent  in.  Parades  were  forbidden."  The  meetings 
were  also  forbidden. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  this  only  mention  of  a 
strikers'  meeting  in  the  main  Interchurch  Report,  violence 
in  direct  connection  with  the  meeting  is  admitted.  The 
Interchurch  Report  tries  to  emphasize  the  point,  however, 
that  the  strike-breaker  was  only  injured  "slightly  "  which  is 
untrue.  It  entirely  fails  to  state,  as  plainly  brought  out  in 
the  Senate  evidence  that  4  or  5  other  workers  were  attacked 
by  strikers  in  the  official  picket  line  and  only  saved  by  the 
police ;  that  another  negro  was  shot  in  the  outskirts  of  Gary 
and  that  it  was  only  because  of  these  and  many  other  cir- 
cumstances which  are  detailed  at  great  length  in  pages  906 
to  952  of  the  Senate  Hearings,  that  the  city  authorities  re- 
voked the  permission  for  meetings  and  parades  which  they 
had  previously  freely  granted.  In  addition  to  hiding  or  dis- 
torting the  plain  evidence  in  this  case,  the  Interchurch 
Report  further  resorts  to  insinuations  for  which  it  gives  no 

30 


306    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

shred  of  evidence  that  all  the  trouble  was  started  by  police 
or  citizens  and  not  by  the  strikers.     It  says : 

"The  strikers  made  frequent  complaint  of  violent  raids  carried  out  by 
bands  of  citizens  calling  themselves  'loyal  American  leaguers'  who  were 
charged  with  clubbing  groups  of  strikers  on  street  corners  at  nights. " 

In  describing  the  attack  of  the  "crowd  of  strikers  leaving 
a  mass  meeting"  on  the  negro,  it  passes  lightly  over  the  in- 
juries of  the  victim  but  stresses  the  fact  that  "a  number  of 
the  (attacking)  strikers  were  clubbed,"  and  otherwise  shows 
the  highest  degree  of  bias  as  well  as  inaccuracy. 

Passing  from  specific  instances  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  brings  up  to  general  conditions  as  to  violence 
Governor  Brown's  records  show  such  further  facts  in  regard 
to  the  quantity  and  degree  of  violence  in  the  steel  strike  as 
follows: 

At  South  Chicago  and  Joliet,  the  "  tinion  organizations  and  strikers 
had  several  automobiles  circulating  the  districts  inhabited  by  steel  mill 
workers  from  which  attacks  were  made  on  workers,  stones  thrown  at 
them  or  their  homes,"  etc.,  etc.  On  October  24th  one  of  these  auto- 
mobile squads  was  caught  threatening  Mrs.  John  Schorey  by  a  group  of 
deputy  sheriffs  and  in  escaping  arrest  one  of  the  strikers  was  shot. 

W.  R.  McGowan  and  Har-ry  F.  Stock  swear  that  on  October  12,  1919, 
on  going  home  from  work  they  were  accosted  by  4  men  of  foreign  appear- 
ance who  after  charging  them  with  working  for  the  Illinois  Steel  Com- 
pany assaulted  them,  beating  and  kicking  them  and  then  disappeared 
on  a  passing  train; 

53  similar  affidavits  are  on  record  from  the  employees  of  the  Illinois 
Steel  Company  or  members  of  their  families: 

On  October  23rd  John  Johns,  an  employee  of  the  American  Sheet 
and  Tin  Plate  Company  of  Elwood,  Indiana,  who  refused  to  continue 
in  the  steel  strike  was  stopped  by  a  crowd  of  strikers.  Dave  Rogers,  a 
former  fellow-worker,  held  him  while  the  crowd  clubbed  him  almost  to 
death; 

At  New  Kensington,  Pennsylvania,  T.  B.  Pollard,  atinmilldoubler 
was  shot  on  his  way  to  work  on  October  20th ; 

On  November  2nd  the  homes  of  Pollard,  Charles  Spencer,  August 
Adams  and  Peter  Smith  were  dynamited,  etc.,  etc. 

At  Bridgesport  and  Martins  Ferry,  Ohio,  strikers  were  stationed  on 
the  hillside  above  the  plant  with  high  powered  rifles  to  fire  at  workers  in 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       307 

the  plant.  A  special  watchman  was  wounded.  Later  Harry  Lemon 
was  killed; 

The  homes  of  David  Jones  and  Don  Cecil  were  dynamited  and  two 
other  non-Ftriking  employees  were  killed; 

Howard  Green  was  shot  point  blank  by  a  striker  while  stepping  off  a 
street  car  and  subsequently  died — the  striker,  Jake  Ulrich,  was  tried 
for  the  shooting  and  convicted ; 

53  of  the  non-striking  employees  of  the  American  Steel  and  Wire 
Company  were  shot,  stoned,  stabbed  or  otherwise  assaulted  dtu-ing  the 
strike,  one  of  them  so  badly  that  he  was  disabled  from  October  24,  19 19, 
to  April  6, 1920,  and  another  one  died. " 

These  are  typical  of  hundreds  of  affidavits  of  cases  in  re- 
gard to  which  detailed  evidence  exists,  in  many  cases  sup- 
ported by  court  records.  To  the  average  American  with 
his  sense  of  fair  play  it  will  also  be  interesting  to  note  that 
in  only  two  cases  were  these  victims  attacked  by  as  few  as 
two  assailants — in  most  cases  the  worker  was  attacked  by 
from  5  to  20  strikers  whom  the  affidavits  or  other  records 
often  mentioned  as  wearing  union  badges  or  being  parties 
from  the  union  picket  lines. 

The  Senate  Investigation  abounds  not  only  in  detailed 
evidence  such  as  already  quoted  in  regard  to  intimidation 
and  violence  in  the  steel  agitation  and  strike,  but  also  in 
evidence  that  further  and  greater  violence  was  in  many 
cases  only  prevented  by  the  prompt  action  of  local  authori- 
ties and  local  public  opinion  in  taking  steps  to  prevent  it. 
(See  particularly  Senate  Hearings,  pages  883-892.) 

This  Senate  evidence  in  regard  to  violence  of  strikers 
was  taken  and  largely  made  public  before  the  Interchurch 
investigation  began  and  was  published  in  full  months  be- 
fore the  first  Interchurch  Report  appeared.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  much  other  evidence  in  regard  to  violence  on  the 
part  of  the  strikers.  The  Interchurch  Report  makes  no 
attempt  either  by  analyzing  such  evidence,  by  making 
fuller  investigation  of  the  specific  facts  it  brings  out  or 
otherwise  to  refute  it.  It  merely  ignores  it  and  insists  on 
the  fiction  that  the  "  1919  steel  strike  was  without  violence," 
at  least  on  the  part  of  the  strikers.  It  is  on  this  pure  fiction 


308       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

which  it  attempts  to  support  by  the  suppression  or  distor- 
tion of  facts  or  clever  quibbles  as  to  facts  that  the  Inter- 
church  Report  builds  up  its  whole  direct*  case  as  to  the  al- 
leged '  'abrogation  of  the  right  of  Free  Speech"  and  makes  its 
sensational  appeal  to  the  national  government  and  na- 
tional public  opinion  against  the  judicially  approved  exer- 
cise of  the  rights  of  local  self-government  in  Pennsylvania. 

'  The  Interchurch  Report  is  constantly  actually  arguing  through  this 
section  for  a  fundamental  change  in  our  laws  which  would  place  the  right 
of  the  individual  agitator  above  the  right  of  the  public.  This  will  be 
still  more  clearly  appreciated  after  consideration  of  the  facts  brought  out 
on  pages  354  to  359  of  the  present  analysis. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

"police  brutality"  and  "denial  of  justice" 

Including  an  analysis  of  one  group  of  the  "  500  rock-bottom 
affidavits"  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
itself  states  it  is  based 

Although  strongly  denying  violence  on  the  part  of  the 
strikers  themselves,  the  Interchiirch  Report  makes  the 
strongest  and  most  sweeping  allegations  as  to  violence  in  the 
steel  strike  on  the  part  of  local  public  officials  and  police 
officers  and  local  citizens  whom  it  spends  pages  in  accusing 
of  systematically  practising  every  form  of  brutality  on  the 
entirely  peaceful  and  non-resisting  strikers. 

In  its  main  volume,  on  pages  238  and  240,  the  Interchurch 
Report  makes  categorically  the  sweeping  general  allegation 
that: 

"During  the  strike  violations  of  personal  rights  and  personal  liberty 
were  wholesale;  men  were  arrested  without  warrants,  imprisoned  with- 
out charges;  their  homes  invaded  without  legal  process,  magistrates* 
verdicts  were  rendered  frankly  on  the  basis  of  whether  the  striker  would  go 
back  to  work  or  not  .  .  .  the  charges  of  beatings,  clubbings,  often  sub- 
stantiated by  doctors'  and  eye  witnesses'  affidavits,  were  endless  and 
monotonous." 

Volume  II  which  is  supposed  to  present  the  evidence  on 
which  Volume  I  makes  its  categorical  and  unqualified 
statements,  says  on  page  177. 

"The  charges  brought  against  the  state  constabulary,  deputy  sheriffs 
and  company  police  deal  with  the  murder  of  men  and  women — one  as  he 

309 


310     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

was  in  his  own  yard — and  the  wounding  of  hundreds  of  others;  the  dubbing 
of  hundreds;  the  assaulting  of  men  while  lawfully  and  peacefully  pur- 
suing errands  on  the  streets  and  of  prisoners  while  they  were  locked 
up  in  their  cells  .  .  .  the  excessive  punishment  meted  out  to  these 
strikers  by  the  different  justices  of  the  peace,  burgesses  and  police 
courts,  and  the  frank  discrimination  in  the  courts  between  those  who 
were  at  work  and  those  who  were  out  on  strike.  ..." 

These  charges  of  "murdering  men  and  women,  wounding 
hundreds,  clubbing  hundreds,"  of  false  arrest,  false  im- 
prisonment and  judicial  discrimination  against  inoffensive 
strikers,  are  made  on  the  basis  of  41  statements  and  affida- 
vits which  the  Interchurch  Report  publishes  and  which  it 
states  are  representative  of  hundreds  of  others  which  it  has. 
As  the  only  evidence  offered  for  a  most  sweeping  attack  on 
the  whole  basis  of  our  organized  social  system,  and  particu- 
larly as  this  is  the  only  considerable  group  it  anywhere 
publishes  of  the  "500  rock-bottom  affidavits  and  statements" 
on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  says  all  its  findings 
are  chiefly  based,  these  documents  deserve  the  most  careful 
attention. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noted  is  that,  with  two  or  three  pos- 
sible exceptions,  all  these  documents  are  signed  by  names 
that  are  distinctly  foreign  and  that  the  affidavits  signed  by 
such  names  as  Harry  Barstow,  H.  J.  Phillips,  Henry  Mc- 
Neely  make  no  such  accusations  as  those  signed  by  the 
obvious  foreigners.  It  is  noticeable  also  that  many  of  these 
affidavits  are  signed  by  marks  indicating  that  the  foreigner 
could  not  read  or  write  even  his  own  name. 

The  Senate  investigation  took  the  testimony  of  many 
ignorant  foreign  steel  workers.  Its  verbatim  stenographic 
records  of  the  testimony  show  that  these  witnesses  have  an 
inevitable  tendency  to  talk  very  vaguely  and  ramblingly, 
to  repeat  themselves  over  and  over  again  and  frequently  to 
unconsciously  contradict  themselves  and  to  leave  out  im- 
portant connective  parts  of  their  statements,  which  con- 
tradictions and  omissions  were  only  straightened  out  by 
cross-examination. 

It  is  to  be  particularly  noted  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       311 

affidavits  presented  by  the  Interchurch  Report  usually  tell 
a  clean,  concise  story,  go  directly  to  a  point  and  make  that 
point  clearly  and  even  cleverly  and  even  frequently  show 
the  utmost  cleverness  in  the  use  of  exclamations  and  vivid 
descriptions  to  create  strong  impressions  without  actually 
alleging  anything. 

The  Interchurch  Report,  Volume  II,  page  178,  frankly 
states  that: 

"The  language  used  in  many  of  these  documents  is  'interpreters' 
English'  ....  Generally  after  a  lengthy  examination  of  the  witness, 
a  brief  statement,  summary  or  aflfidavit  would  be  written  out  in  English, 
translated  back  to  the  witness  by  the  interpreter  and  after  final  correc- 
tion signed  by  the  witness." 

But  the  whole  value  of  affidavits  so  arrived  at  of  course 
depend  on  the  clear  understanding  and  scrupulous  impar- 
tiality of  the  one  who  formulated  the  affidavits  and  of  the 
interpreter.  It  is  extremely  material,  therefore,  to  consider 
whether  the  men  who  played  such  an  important  part  in 
determining  the  nature  of  these  affidavits  were  competent 
or  scrupulously  impartial. 

The  Interchurch  Report  itself  states  that  part  of  these 
statements  and  affidavits  were  taken  by  the  Interchurch 
investigators  and  part  of  them  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Maurer  who  is 
mentioned  or  quoted  repeatedly  in  connection  with  them. 

Mr.  Maurer  was  at  this  time  president  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Federation  of  Labor.  He  and  Scott  Nearing  signed  the 
famous  cablegram  to  Russia  of  March  3,  191 8  stating  that 
they  represented  "300  radical  groups  in  42  states"  and  urg- 
ing the  Soviet  authorities  to  stand  by  peace  terms  sub- 
stantially the  opposite  of  those  to  which  America  and  the 
allies  were  committed.  ^ 

The  question  of  the  competence  and  impartiality  of  the 
Interchurch  Investigators  who  prepared  such  affidavits  as 
were  not  prepared  by  Mr.  Maurer,  is  discussed  in  Part  II 
of  the  present  analysis. 

'  For  full  text  of  this  document  see  New  York  State  Investigation  of 
Radicalism,  Vol.  I,  page  1076. 


312    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  Interchurch  Report,  Voltime  II,  page  176  specifically 
says: 

"Most  of  these  affidavits  were  obtained  by  joining  strikers'  groups 
casually  in  the  different  communities.  Other  affidavits  which  were  sent 
to  Governor  Sproul  by  President  Maurer  of  the  State  Federation  and 
were  presented  to  the  U.  S.  Senate  Committee  are  included  in  the  Re- 
port, but  only  after  re-examination  of  them  in  conference  with  Mr. 
Maurer 's  investigator.  Not  more  than  one  day  was  spent  in  any  of  the 
towns  by  the  investigators  and  on  several  occasions  two  or  three  nearby 
towns  were  covered  in  the  same  day. 

"In  most  instances  a  line  of  men  and  women  ready  to  testify  and 
swear  to  their  accusations  had  formed  and  had  to  be  broken  up  when 
the  investigators  left. " 

But  in  spite  of  this  seeming  superfluity  of  original  evi- 
dence thus  described  by  the  Interchurch  Report  as  offered 
to  its  own  investigators,  an  examination  of  these  affidavits 
themselves — as  far  as  they  are  published — ^immediately 
reveals  the  fact  that  20  of  the  41  show  dates  of  or  before  Oc- 
tober 3rd — ^that  is  before  the  Interchurch  investigation  of  the 
steel  strike  had  even  been  proposed.  Thirty  of  them  show 
dates  before  the  Interchurch  Commission  of  investigation 
was  even  appointed  and  several  more  of  them  before  any  of 
the  investigators,  as  such,  could  have  reached  the  strike  area. 
As  far  as  these  published  affidavits  are  concerned  then,  it  is 
plain  that  practically  all,  if  not  all  of  them,  are  those  col- 
lected by  Mr.  Maurer,  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  State 
Federation  of  Labor  who  officially  signed  himself  in  his 
correspondence  with  the  Soviet  authorities  as  "represent- 
ing 300  radical  groups  in  42  states." 

When  these  affidavits  are  examined  in  detail  a  number  of 
very  interesting  and  on  the  surface  puzzling  facts  appear. 
A  large  number  of  what  seem  to  be  allegations  prove  on 
examination  to  be  merely  exclamations  or  pieces  of  vivid 
description  cleverly  bound  together  and  sworn  to.  Al- 
though these  affidavits  are  signed  by  a  wide  variety  of 
people  who  live  in  widely  different  places,  and  though  the 
details  vary  the  substance  of  the  allegations,  the  main 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       313 

points  emphasized  and  the  way  they  are  emphasized  ap- 
pear strangely  similar.  The  victim  is  regvdarly  described  as 
entirely  peaceful — frequently  performing  an  errand  of 
mercy  at  the  time — trying  to  save  some  little  children  or 
trying  to  persuade  an  officer  not  to  beat  a  helpless  victim 
— the  assaulting  police  seemed  drunk  or  crazy — ^they  sud- 
denly charged  without  cause,  "firing  as  they  came"  when  the 
victim  is  prostrate  they  continue  to  beat  him — the  woman 
victim  almost  invariably  has  a  child  in  her  arms  or  is 
in  a  "delicate  condition,"  etc.,  etc.  To  this  strange  simi- 
larity must  be  added  the  fact  of  frequent  lack  of  plausi- 
bility. For  instance  one  or  two  blows  on  the  head  with 
the  heavy  type  of  police  club  known  to  be  used  would 
seem  almost  sure  to  render  a  man  unconscious.  The  alle- 
gation therefore,  that  a  mounted  officer  continued  to  beat 
a  man  over  the  head  for  "about  a  block"  does  not  on  its 
face  seem  plausible. 

A  great  deal  of  light,  moreover,  can  be  thrown  on  these 
affidavits  as  a  whole  by  analyzing  them  with  reference  to 
certain  well-established  and  pertinent  outside  facts  and  it  is 
only  through  an  understanding  of  these  outside  facts  that 
the  strange  inconsistencies  and  consistencies — including 
the  general  uniformity  of  date — of  these  affidavits  can  be 
understood. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  moment  any  great  strike 
is  started  its  leaders  immediately  begin  to  circulate  "atroc- 
ity stories"  for  the  obvious  purpose  of  inflaming  the  workers 
and  stirring  them  to  greater  determination  and  resistance. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  the  strike,  before  any  incidents 
which  cotdd  be  interpreted  as  atrocities  have  had  time  to 
occur,  such  stories  are  often  brought  in  from  outside  and 
connected  in  some  vague  way  with  the  current  strike.  But 
as  the  current  strike  proceeds,  every  possible  little  incident 
that  can  be  so  turned  to  account  is  at  once  seized  on  by  the 
strike  leaders  and  cleverly  colored  or  distorted  to  build  up  a 
larger  and  larger  supply  of  atrocity  stories  to  continue  and 
strengthen  such  propaganda. 


314     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Exactly  this  method  of  procedure  was  instituted  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  steel  strike.  Before  it  was  possible 
to  get  "atrocity"  stories  in  connection  with  that  strike  itself 
a  story  was  imported  in  regard  to  the  death  of  a  Mrs.  Fanny 
Sellins  which  had  occurred  in  connection  with  a  previous 
small  local  coal  strike.  This  story  was  vividly  colored. 
Gruesome  photographs  of  Mrs,  Sellins  as  she  lay  dead  were 
prepared  and  widely  circulated.  Foster  in  his  book  The 
Great  Steel  Strike,  pages  147  and  148  goes  into  this  story 
in  gory  detail.  It  was  introduced  into  the  first  day's  hear- 
ings before  the  Senate  Committee  and  although  a  thorough 
investigation  had  been  made,  the  Coroner's  Findings  fully 
published  and  these  findings  reviewed  by  a  grand  jury — 
which  facts  were  brought  out  at  the  first  day's  Senate 
Hearings — nevertheless,  ten  days  later  at  a  psychological 
moment,  Mr.  Rubin,  the  strikers'  attorney  tried  to  intro- 
duce before  the  Senate  Committee  some  bloody  clothes  said 
to  have  been  worn  by  Mrs.  Sellins  when  she  was  killed  in 
this  entirely  different  strike,  and  the  strike  leaders  otherwise 
again  and  again  brought  up  this  story,  circulating  it  always 
with  more  and  more  gruesome  details  in  connection  with  the 
steel  strike  as  though  it  were  part  of  the  steel  strike. 

The  Coroner's  Verdict,  specially  reviewed  by  a  grand  jury 
had  stated  that  Mrs.  Sellins  came  to  her  death  from  a  gun 
shot  wound  in  the  left  temple  caused  ' '  during  attack  on  the 
sheriff's  deputies."  The  Coroner's  jury  also  particularly 
condemned  the  use  made  of  this  incident  by  "foreign  agita- 
tors" who  "instil  anarchy  into  the  minds  of  un- Americans 
and  uneducated  aliens." 

An  understanding  of  just  how  this  story  was  exaggerated 
and  colored  for  propaganda  presentation  in  a  form  that  was 
provably  at  least  95%  false  is  extremely  significant  because 
of  the  parallel  between  this  known  stock  propaganda  story 
and  a  large  share  of  the  Interchurch  affidavits.  The  story 
of  Mrs.  Sellins'  death,  as  widely  circulated  by  strike  leaders 
and  as  published  specifically  by  Foster  in  his  "Great  Steel 
Strike,"  pages  147  and  148  accompanied  by  one  of  the  grue- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       315 

some  photographs,  which  in  view  of  the  coroner's  verdict  was 
entirely  faked,  alleged : 

1.  "All  was  going  peacefully." 

2.  "When  a  dozen  drunken  deputy  sherififs  .  .  .  suddenly  rushed 
the  pickets,  shooting  as  they  came." 

3.  Mrs.  Snellins  "rushed  first  to  get  some  children  out  of  danger." 

4.  "Then  she  came  back  to  plead  with  the  deputies  who  were  still 
clubbing  the  prostrate  Strzelecki. " 

5.  She  was  not  on  company  ground  but  just  outside  the  fence  of  a 
friend. 

6.  Then  a  mine  official  brutally  snatched  a  club  and  felled  the  woman 
to  the  ground. 

7.  As  she  was  trying  to  get  away  they  shot  her  three  times,  "each 
taking  effect." 

8.  As  she  lay  prostrate  they  shot  her  again.  Then  they  brutally 
dragged  her  by  the  heels. 

9.  Then  another  police  officer  "took  a  cudgel  and  crushed  in  her  skull 
before  the  eyes  of  the  throng  of  men,  women  and  children  who  stood  in 
powerless  silence  before  the  armed  men." 

10.  Then  "Deputy ^picked  up  the  woman's  hat,  placed  it  on  his 

head,  danced  a  step  and  said  '  I'm  Mrs.  Snellins  now.'  " 

11.  "  She  was  49  years  old,  a  grandmother  and  mother  of  a  boy  killed 
in  France  fighting  to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy. " 

This  story,  which  as  a  matter  of  the  most  carcftil  court 
records  is  known  to  be — at  least  as  here  published — almost 
purely  inflammatory  propaganda,  brought  in  from  outside 
and  used  in  the  steel  strike  merely  for  that  purpose,  obviously 
consists  of  the  most  clever  arrangement  of  phraseology  and 
ideas  to  have  a  maximum  inflammatory  effect  on  credtdous 
hearers.  Yet  when  the  Interchurch  rock  bottom  affidavits 
as  published  are  analysed,  it  appears  that  these  docimients 
admittedly  composed  not  by  the  men  who  signed  them  but 
either  by  Maurer  or  the  Interchurch  investigators,  are  many 
of  them  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  carefully  arranged  and 
phrased  to  bring  out  the  same  kind  of  ideas  and  to  get  the 
same  kind,  though  not  always  the  same  degree  of  effect. 
This  parallel  will  be  remarked  on  more  specifically  as  the 
Interchurch  affidavits  are  individually  referred  to. 

The  first  widely  circulated  atrocity  propaganda  based  on 


3i6    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

incidents  occurring  in  connection  with  the  steel  strike  itself 
— and  which  the  Interchurch  Report  strongly  features — 
consist  of  two  statements  by  the  Reverend  Father  Kazinci' 
of  Braddock  which  appear  in  slightly  different  form  in  letters 
to  Governor  Sproul,  in  the  Senate  Hearings  and  in  a  letter 
to  William  Z.  Foster  in  which  latter  form  they  were  widely 
published  for  propaganda  purposes.  As  published  on  page 
122  of  the  Great  Steel  Strike,  Father  Kazinci's  atrocity 
charge  made  through  clever  insinuation  by  description  and 
exclamation  which  obviously  does  not  actually  allege  any 
atrocity  at  all,  is  as  follows: 

"  Tuesday  afternoon  the  little  babies  of  Number  i  were  going  to  the 
school.  They  loitered  for  the  school  bell  to  summon  them.  And  here 
come  the  Kozaks  (Cossacks).  They  see  the  little  innocents  standing 
on  the  steps  of  the  school  house,  their  parents  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
street.  What  a  splendid  occasion  to  start  the  'Htmkies'  ire.  Let  us 
charge  their  babies.  That  will  fetch  them  to  an  attack  upon  us.  They 
did,  but  the  Hunky  even  at  the  supreme  test  of  his  coolheadedness 
refused  to  flash  his  knife  to  save  his  babies  from  the  onrush  of  the  cruel 
horses' hoofs. " 

Also — 

"Oh,  it  was  great;  it  was  magnificent.  They,  these  husky,  muscle- 
bound  Titans  of  raw  foice  walked  home  .  .  .  only  thinking,  thinking 
hard." 

Although  it  was  of  course  recognized  that  this  clever 
insinuation  which  actually  states  nothing  at  all  was  pure 
inflammatory  propaganda,  this  statement  was  so  widely 
published  by  the  strike  leaders  that  Governor  Sproul  made 
a  special  investigation  and  it  was  found  to  be  based  on  the 
trivial  incident  that  some  school  children  gathered  out  of 
curiosity  around  the  horses  of  Corporal  Nelson  Smith  and 
Private  John  Tomek  while  the  horses  were  tied  near  a  school 
building — that  the  officers  warned  the  children  away  for 
fear  the  horses  might  hurt  them  and  later  rode  off  in  another 
direction  (Senate  Hearings,  page  88i). 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       317 

The  Senate  Committee  also  cross  examined  Father 
Kazinci  on  this  statement  (Senate  Hearings,  page  543) : 

**  Senator  Stirling:  Were  any  of  the  children  hurt? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  By  some  miracle,  I  do  not  know  how,  they  were 
not  hurt. 

"  The  Chairman:  How  could  they  have  'jumped  the  horses  in  among 
those  children '  and  not  any  of  them  hurt? 

"Father  Kazinci:  I  suppose  they  acted  the  same  as  you  and  I  act. 
When  I  see  the  horses  coming  I  run. 

"  Chairman:  Did  you  see  that  yourself? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  I  had  it  from  the  sisters. 

"Mr.  Rubin  (strikers'  attorney):  Do  you  know  the  sisters  and  do 
you  know  where  they  are? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  They  are  all  willing  to  testify  to  what  they  have 
seen. 

"  Mr.  Rubin:  Will  you  bring  one  of  the  sisters  here  this  afternoon? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  They  are  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  authorities 
and  not  allowed  to  leave  their  convent  without  their  pei  mission  or  I 
would  do  it. 

"  Mr.  Rubin:  Will  you  try  to  have  permission  for  one  of  the  sisters  to 
come  here? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  Yes  sir. " 

No  witness  to  this  widely  published  atrocity  of  "Charg- 
ing the  children"  was  ever  produced. 

The  Senate  Committee  at  the  same  time  went  into  the 
second  allegation  by  insinuation  of  Father  Kazinci's  which 
the  strike  leaders  had  widely  circulated  as  part  of  their 
"atrocity  propaganda"  (Senate  Hearings,  page  543): 

"  Father  Kazinci:  On  the  2ist  I  personally  walked  out  in  the  middle 
of  the  street  leaving  the  church  to  stop  these  men  (state  piolice)  and  ask 
them  what  did  they  mean  by  clubbing  peaceful  worshippers  leaving  the 
church." 

On  cross  examination,  however,  the  following  was  brought 
out: 

"  Senator  McKellar:  Have  you  seen  any  persons  clubbed  by  the  state 
constabulary? 

"  Father  Kazinci:  No,  sir,  I  have  not. 

"Mr.  Rubin  (striker's  attorney):  Have  you  seen  them  after  they 
have  been  clubbed? 


3i8     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"Father  Kazinci:  I  have  seen  one. 

"  Mr.  Rubin:  Did  you  see  any  wounds?     Describe  the  wounds. 
"  Father  Kazinci:  He  did  not  show  me  any  of  the  wounds  but  he  told_ 
me  about  the  incident.' ' 

Yet  as  the  first  evidence  presented  under  its  heading  "As- 
saults and  Police  Brutality"  the  Interchurch  Report  writ- 
ten months  later  and  fully  familiar  with  all  this  Senate 
testimony  says  (Volume  II  page  175): 

"At  the  very  beginning  of  the  strike  charges  of  brutal  assaults  and 
attacks  were  made  by  the  strikers  and  their  leaders  against  the  State  Con- 
stabulary, the  deputy  sheriffs  and  the  company  guards.  The  first 
audible  protest  against  these  violations  from  an  outside  person  came 
from  the  Reverend  (Father)  A.  Kazinci  of  Braddock  when  he  wrote  to 
Governor  William  C.  Sproul  and  described  in  detail  the  assault  of  state 
troopers  upon  his  people  as  they  were  coming  out  of  church;  and  the 
driving  of  horses  by  the  same  State  Police  upon  little  children  as  they  were 
assembled  in  the  school  yard.  Numerous  charges  of  assaults  and  attacks 
were  also  brought  out  before  the  U.  S.  Senate  Committee. " 

The  Interchurch  Report  does  not  mention  or  suggest  the 
fact  that  Governor  Sproul  thoroughly  investigated  these 
charges  and  proved  them  false  or  that  Father  Kazinci  him- 
self under  oath  and  cross-examination  had  entirely  repud- 
iated all  the  essential  part  of  these  charges. 

It  will  be  noted  that  Father  Kazinci's  "atrocity"  charges, 
as  they  were  originally  published,  and  as  they  are  published 
by  Foster  and  in  part  by  the  Interchurch  Report,  even  after 
their  repudiation  before  the  Senate  Committee,  parallel  the 
standard  atrocity  propaganda  allegations  as  built  to  order 
around  the  incident  of  Mrs.  Snellins'  death  in  that — 

1.  Alleged  victims  were  entirely  peaceful. 

2.  The  "act  of  mercy"  idea  is  supplied  by  " peaceful 
worshippers  coming  out  of  church" — "little  children  going 
to  the  schools." 

3.  The  attack  is  brutal,  wanton  and  reckless  though 
craziness  and  drunkenness  are  not  here  charged. 

4.  The  "powerless  silence  before  the  armed  men"  of  the 
Snellins  story  is  paralleled  by  the  "coolheadedness"  of  the 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       319 

"muscle  bound  Titans  of  labor  who  were  only  thinking — 
thinking  hard." 

5.  The  charge  of  diabolical  heartlessness,  as  shown  by 
the  alleged  taking  of  the  dead  woman's  hat,  donning  it  and 
the  ribald  dance  over  her  dead  body  is  at  least  approximated 
by  the  charge  of  deliberately  attempting  to  ride  down 
little  children. 

Another  early  incident  connected  with  the  steel  strike 
itself,  which  the  strike  leaders  immediately  seized  on,  highly 
colored  and  published  widely  in  most  inflammatory  form, 
grew  out  of  the  breaking  up  a  strikers'  meeting  in  North 
Clairton,  Sunday  afternoon  September  21st,  the  day  before 
the  strike.  The  question  of  whether  or  not  this  meeting 
should  have  been  allowed  was  in  dispute  but  this  point  was 
entirely  overshadowed  by  the  atrocity  allegations  which 
grew  out  of  the  affair. 

As  six  state  troopers  were  dispersing  the  crowd  one  of 
them  evidently  accidentally  knocked  down  an  American  flag 
which  is  variously  stated  to  have  been  on  the  platform  and 
carried  by  one  of  the  strikers.  The  flag  was  picked  up  by 
Mr.  Brogan,  or  picked  up  and  handed  to  Mr.  Brogan,  a 
Secretary  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  one  of  the  speakers  at  the  meet- 
ing and  one  of  those  arrested.  While  the  crowd  was  being 
dispersed,  some  of  the  strikers  threw  only  "ashes.  There  is 
no  brickbats  there"  (Senate  Hearings,  page  549).  The 
police  then  evidently  fired  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd. 
No  one  was  hit  or  otherwise  hurt  in  this  connection  although 
in  the  same  afternoon,  a  woman  on  her  way  to  the  store  who 
got  into  the  crush  along  the  road  was  knocked  down  by  a 
mounted  trooper  and  her  hand  stepped  on  so  that  she  had  to 
carry  it  in  a  sling  for  a  week. 

Around  these  incidents  the  strike  leaders  immediately 
built  the  most  vivid  atrocity  stories.  Twenty-two  special 
affidavits,  according  to  the  Interchurch  Report,  were  ob- 
tained obviously  by  Mr.  Maurer — of  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself  publishes  two — one  by  Mr.  Terzich  exclaiming 
but  making  no  statements  whatever  (page  185)  that — 


320    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"But  when  the  state  troopers  rushed  to  the  platform  and  tore  down 
our  flag  that  the  men  became  incensed  and  some  ex-soldiers,  seeing  ovu" 
flag  being  insulted  and  defiled,  rushed  at  said  troopers  in  defense  of  our 
flag  and  started  the  excitement  and  almost  caused  a  riot.  .  .  .  That 
there  was  no  provocation  for  said  interference  and  riding  over  women 
and  children." 

The  other  Interchurch  affidavit  concerning  this  circum- 
stance surrounding  the  breaking  up  of  this  meeting  is  signed 
P.  H.  Grogan.  This  man,  however,  when  he  appeared 
before  the  Senate  Committee  gave  his  name  as  B  rogan. 
He  is  also  referred  to  by  his  associate  W.  Z.  Foster  in  his 
book  The  Great  Steel  Strike  (page  59)  as  P.  H.  5  rogan. 
Before  the  Senate  Committee  he,  moreover,  stated  that  he 
was  Secretary  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  which  fact  the  Interchurch 
Report  fails  to  mention  in  his  Interchurch  "affidavit."  No. 
38.  Mr.  Broganlike  Mr.  Terzich  gets  his  entire  atrocity  effect 
by  vivid  insinuation  and  description  instead  of  by  direct 
statement,  as  follows  (page  184): 

"  State  policeman  .  .  .  acted  like  he  was  'either  crazy  or  drunk.'  He 
started  to  shoot  and  the  people  were  scrambling  as  fast  as  they  could 
get  away.  He  emptied  the  gun  more  than  once — I  could  not  tell 
how  many  shots.  ...  He  got  to  shooting  the  people  for  trying  to  get 
up  the  hill  and  get  away  .  .  .  (then  he)  started  to  shoot  in  the  other 
direction.  Horses  were  standing  up  on  their  hind  feet.  .  .  .  There 
were  lots  of  women  and  children — many  children  in  baby  carriages." 
He  then  states  that  he  and  another  man  tried  to  pick  up  the  flag  and 
then  he  was  arrested. 

When  these  "affidavits"  are  compared  with  the  standard 
propaganda  agitation  doctmient  built  up  around  the  death 
of  Mrs.  Sellins,  it  is  again  seen  that  the  incidents  are 
grouped  and  colored  and  carefully  focused  to  build  up 
almost  exactly  the  same  points : 

1.  That  the  people  were  entirely  peaceful. 

2.  The  police  acted  like  they  were  either  crazy  or  drunk. 

3.  The  impression  is  built  up  that  the  attack  was  wanton 
and  unnecessary  and  the  troopers  fired  as  they  came. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       321 

4.  The  ' '  act  of  mercy' '  in  this  case  was  rescuing  the  flag ; 
according  to  one  affidavit  Mr.  Brogan  and  another  man 
picked  it  up  and  were  arrested ;  according  to  the  other,  the 
people  started  to  run  away  but  "some  ex-soldiers,  seeing  our 
flag  being  insulted  and  defiled,  rushed  to  rescue  oiu-  flag  and 
almost  caused  a  riot." 

5,  "Firing  volley  after  volley  into  a  fleeing  crowd"; 
"shooting" — not  shooting  at  or  over  the  heads  of  but 
"shooting  the  people  for  trying  to  get  up  the  hill  and  get 
away";  "riding  over  women  and  children" — particularly  in 
connection  with  the  strikers'  general  claims  and  the  Inter- 
church  Report's  context  about  "men  and  women  being 
murdered  and  hundreds  being  wounded" — all  seek  to  build 
up  the  same  kind  of  picture  of  utter  brutality  as  the  allega- 
tions that  the  police  fired  repeatedly  into  Mrs.  Snellins' 
dead  body,  dragged  it  about  by  the  heels,  etc. 

The  Senate  Committee  went  very  particularly  into  this 
widely  alleged  atrocity  also.  The  strikers  brought  two  wit- 
nesses. The  first,  a  Mr.  Lurgu  Sidella,  testified  about  the 
"trampling  and  defiling  of  the  flag,"  under  oath  as  follows 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  569) : 

"  Mr.  Sidella:  .  .  .  and  the  first  thing  he  done  he  got  hold  of  the  club 
and  he  knocked  the  flag  down.  The  horse  he  walked  a  little  bit  and 
came  over  on  top  of  the  flag. 

"Mr.  Rubins  (strikers'  attorney);  Do  you  mean  the  horse  trampled 
the  flag? 

"Mr.  Sidella:  The  horse  he  came  over  the  flag.  ...  I  said  'don't 
knock  no  flag  down.'    He  said  *we  never  knock  any  flag  down.' 

"Senator  Stirling:  Do  you  think  he  struck  at  the  flag  deliberately 
for  the  purpose  of  knocking  down  the  flag,  or  did  the  flag  get  knocked 
down,  he  striking  at  it  accidently? 

"Mr.  Sidella:  I  could  not  say  that.  I  know  I  say  here  he  went  and 
strike  the  flag  down,  he  went  and  struck  the  flag  down  and  grabbed 
Mr.  Brogan  and  he  says,  'watch  I  am  going  to  get  that  flag'  and 
Mr.  Brogan  grabbed  the  flag  oflE  of  the  ground  and  he  had  it  in  his 
hand. 

"Senator  Stirling:  But  you  would  hardly  say  that  he  deliberately 
knocked  the  flag  down — intended  to  knock  the  flag  down? 

"Mr.  Sidella:  I  coiUd  not  say." 


322     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  second  witness  the  strike  leaders  brought  to  testify 
as  to  the  North  Clairton  atrocities  was  Mr.  P.  H.  Brogan 
himself,  local  secretary  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  one  of  the  speakers 
at  the  meeting  and  the  man  who  picked  up  the  flag — and  the 
man  whose  lengthy  affidavit  the  Interchurch  Report  pub- 
lishes over  the  signature  of  P.  H.  Grogan. 

In  his  testimony  before  the  Senate  Committee  Mr. 
Brogan  obviously  attempted  to  build  up  the  same  atrocity 
picture  by  vivid  description  of  how  the  troopers  fired  into 
the  crowds,  etc.  Under  cross-examination  he  for  a  time  tried 
to  avoid  admitting  that  the  firing  was  done  only  over  the 
heads  of  the  people  and  that  no  one  was  hurt  but  the  final 
testimony  on  this  point  was  as  follows  (Senate  Hearings, 
page  549) : 

"  The  Chairman:  And  he  didn't  hit  anybody? 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  Well,  he  was  shooting  mostly  at  those  who  were  on  the 
side  of  the  railroad  company's  right  of  way.  There  were  a  couple  of 
thousand  people  at  the  meeting. 

"  The  Chairman:  Was  he  shooting  at  the  people? 

"Mr.  Brogan:  Yes.  Those  that  were  piling  up  trying  to  get  away 
from  him  on  the  bank  of  the  railroad. 

"Senator  McKellar:  He  was  not  a  very  good  shot  then,  was  he? 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  He  was  a  good  distance  away,  you  know.  He  was  too 
far  away  for  them  to  throw  any  brickbats. 

"Senator  McKellar:  Do  you  think  he  was  shooting  to  frighten  them? 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  I  could  not  tell. 

"Senator  Stirling:  Nobody  was  hit? 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  Nobody  was  hit  that  I  know  of." ' 

Mr.  Brogan  tried  also  before  the  Senate  Committee  to 
give  the  same  impression  about  women  and  children  being 
trampled  (Senate  Hearings,  page  549) : 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  Yes,  sir,  then  they  (state  police)  got  in  on  the  ground 
and  they  knocked  down  some  women. 
"Senator  Phipps:  Are  those  women  here? 

*  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  in  handling  a  sullen  crowd  of 
2000  to  3000  who  were  throwing  ashes  and  might  momentarily 
break  out  into  worse  violence  6  less  experienced  and  disciplined  men 
than  these  state  troopers  might  quite  possibly  have  lost  their  heads 
and  precipitated  some  real  tragedy. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       323 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  Yes,  sir.  One  lady  had  a  little  baby  in  her  arms  and  he 
trampled  on  her  wrist.    The  baby  rolled  down  over  the  bank. 

"Senator  Phipps:  Did  you  see  that? 

"  Mr.  Brogan:  I  did  not  see  it  but  I  have  got  the  lady  here  ,  .  .  this 
gentleman  (indicating)  was  standing  alongside  the  lady.  This  gentleman 
had  a  flag  that  was  torn  down. " 

The  Senate  Committee  then  called  this  woman — Mary 
Wickowicz,  who  said  through  an  interpreter  that  she  had 
not  been  at  the  meeting  at  all  but  was  on  her  way  to  the  store 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  568). 

"  The  Interpreter:  She  says  she  went  down  to  the  store  .  .  .  she  was 
not  right  in  the  crowd  but  along  the  road  some  place  .  .  .  she  says 
the  state  police  came  up  on  a  horse  and  walked  over  her  and  the  baby 
rolled  off  her  arms  and  then  finally  she  rolled  over  and  got  up  and  picked 
up  the  baby  and  looked  up  to  see  what  happened  and  she  saw  this  state 
trooper  hit  one  of  the  men  over  the  head. 

"  The  Chairman:  Did  any  policeman  hit  her? 

"  The  Interpreter:  No,  just  the  horse.  The  policeman  did  not  touch 
her;  just  the  horse;  walked  over  her  hand. " 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Brogan  himself  swears 
that  nobody  was  hit  as  far  as  he  knew  and  his  testimony  to 
this  effect  appears  in  the  Senate  Hearings,  the  Interchurch 
Report  months  afterwards  published  his  original  "  affidavit ' ' 
about  "drunk  or  crazy  troopers"  firing  into  the  crowd  and 
about  "riding  over  women  and  children"  as  evidence  of  its 
charges  that  "men  and  women  were  murdered,"  hundreds 
wounded,  etc.,  not  only  without  mentioning  the  fact  of  Mr. 
Brogan's  sworn  repudiation,  but  publishing  his  "affidavit" 
without  his  title,  with  half  of  the  name  of  the  locality 
omitted  and  with  the  first  letter  of  his  name  changed  so  that 
through  neither  the  index  of  the  Interchurch  Report  or  the 
Senate  Hearings  can  the  fact  that  he  repudiated  the  whole 
substance  of  the  Interchurch  affidavit  be  discovered. 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  repeating  the  charge  about  the 
"  murdering  of  men  and  women  .  .  .  one  on  the  steps  of  his 
own  home"  on  page  190,  Volume  II,  says: 


324    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"  The  policy  of  the  Farrell  authorities,  it  may  fairly  be  inferred,  was 
to  shoot  to  kill.  Thus  in  Farrell  two  persons  were  killed  outright,  one 
while  on  the  steps  of  his  own  house;  several  persons  were  woimded 
badly  among  them  a  mother  of  6  children." 

Immediately  after  this  charge  of  deliberate  killing  the 
Interchiirch  Report  publishes  three  affidavits.  One  of  these 
only  alleges  that  one  man,  standing  on  a  street  corner  in  the 
trouble  area,  but  who  it  is  emphasized  was  "not  provoking 
any  disorder  whatever,"  heard  firing,  turned  to  see  what  it 
was  about  and  was  hit  by  a  stray  bullet  fired  "from  up 
street."  The  other  affidavit  only  alleges  that  a  woman  was 
struck  by  a  stray  bullet  fired ' '  from  up  the  street."  Neither 
of  these  affidavits  even  insinuates  anything  beyond  an 
accident  from  a  stray  bullet  from  distant  firing.  Yet  they 
are  thus  closely  tied  up  and  given  as  evidence  of  the  deliber- 
ate policy  of  the  police  to  shoot  to  kill,  and  also  are  directly 
tied  up  with  the  third  affidavit  which  does  plainly  insinu- 
ate but  does  not  directly  charge  deliberate  shooting. 

This  third  affidavit,  if  it  could  be  considered  entirely 
alone,  makes  a  very  serious  charge  in  a  plausible  manner. 
But  no  matter  how  favorably  its  evidence  may  be  regarded 
it  cannot  be  regarded  as  conclusive,  nor  can  it  be  regarded 
alone.  First,  it  is  obvious  that  there  was  a  coroner's  in- 
quest at  which  facts  were  of  course  more  fully  brought  out 
than  in  any  single  statement  by  one  man.  Yet  neither  the 
coroner's  inquest  nor  other  evidence  that  must  have  been 
available  in  regard  to  so  serious  an  affair  is  mentioned. 
Again  the  date  of  this  "murder"  affidavit — September  23d 
— indicates  plainly  that  it  belongs  to  the  Maurer  group.  The 
fact  that  this  affidavit  is  also  signed  by  a  foreigner  who 
could  not  even  write  his  own  name,  and  the  whole  natiu*e 
of  the  docimient  shows  plainly  that  it  was  composed  and 
its  phraseology  and  arrangement  entirely  determined  by 
the  Maurer  investigators.  Finally  a  close  examination  of 
it  shows  that  it  also  contains  all  the  earmarks  of  the  other 
affidavits  which  are  provably  standard  atrocity  propaganda, 
for  it  alleges  that: 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       325 

1.  Two  brothers  were  in  their  own  yard  entirely  peaceful. 

2.  The  state  troopers  came  out  from  the  gates  of  the  wire  mills 
"firing  shots  in  all  directions." 

3.  He  was  playing  with  his  little  four  year  old  child  at  the  time  and 
was  shot  as  he  was  trying  to  take  her  into  the  house. 

4.  His  brother  was  first  wotmded,  then  shot  and  killed  as  he  was 
trying  to  get  away  into  the  door  of  the  house. 

5.  Before  he  was  taken  to  the  hospital  his  house  was  searched  and 
the  police  would  not  allow  him  to  attend  his  dead  brother. 

6.  His  wife  was  in  a  "delicate  condition." 

On  its  face  then  the  credibility  of  this  Interchurch 
"affidavit"  is  open  to  serious  question.  Moreover  in  a 
different  connection  in  Vol.  II,  page  126,  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself,  quoting  from  a  local  newspaper,  publishes  an 
entirely  different  statement  of  this  case.  This  statement 
briefly  is  as  follows : 

The  house  of  Nick  Gratichini,  known  commonly  as  Nick 
Grato,  overlooked  the  mill  gate.  Men  going  to  work  and 
guards  at  the  gate  were  being  systematically  fired  upon  from 
this  neighborhood.  Finally  the  firing  was  located  as  com- 
ing from  Nick  Grato's  house  and  four  State  police  armed 
with  Springfield  rifles  were  sent  to  arrest  the  inmates. 
While  one  inmate  was  resisting  arrest  on  the  porch,  the 
officers  were  fired  upon  from  within  the  house.  When 
therefore  Nick  Grato  was  seen  to  come  out  of  the  house  and 
sneak  around  the  corner  towards  one  of  the  officers,  he  was 
immediately  fired  at  by  another  officer,  and  his  brother, 
who  ran  into  the  yard  at  the  same  time  was  shot  in  the  leg. 

In  other  words,  the  Interchurch  Report  is  on  notice  that 
the  facts  of  this  case  as  locally  stated  and  believed  at  the  time 
are  substantially  the  opposite  of  those  alleged  in  its 
"affidavit."  Yet  without  making  the  least  reference  to 
police  court  records  or  coroners'  findings  which  of  necessity 
examined  and  recorded  the  evidence  in  such  a  case  in  great 
detail,  or  furnishing  one  shred  of  outside  evidence  to  support 
this  entirely  different  version,  it  publishes  this  "affidavit" 
composed  and  phrased  by  a  notorious  radical  labor  leader 
and  merely  signed  by  the  mark  of  the  accused  in  the  case,  as 


326    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  only  evidence  on  which  it  makes  its  sensational  state- 
ments about  "the  murder  of  men  and  women." 

The  above  affidavits  are  all  that  can  be  related  to  the 
Interchurch  Report's  sweeping  general  allegations  about  the 
"murder  of  men  and  women,"  and  all  that  can  be  related 
to  the  alleged  "wounding  of  hundreds,  the  clubbing  of 
hundreds"  in  so  far  as  that  alleged  wounding  or  clubbing 
involved  other  than  single  individuals. 

There  remain  two  other  groups  of  affidavits,  those  relat- 
ing to  alleged  brutalities  to- 'single  individuals  and  those 
relating  to  alleged  false  arrest  and  imprisonment  and  a 
general  discrimination  by  both  police  and  courts  against 
strikers  merely  on  the  ground  that  they  were  strikers. 

It  is  almost  impossible,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  to 
express  any  final  conclusion  in  regard  to  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  large  number  of  Interchurch  affidavits  which  allege 
individual  brutal  acts,  in  regard  to  which  the  man  or  woman 
claiming  to  be  the  victim  of  the  act  makes  the  affidavits, 
and  where  there  is  no  other  evidence  with  which  to  check 
the  affidavit. 

Paul  Yagodisch  swears  (Interchurch  Report,  page  206) 
that  he  was  standing  in  the  street  doing  nothing  and  that : 

"...  As  he  was  standing  watching,  two  deputies  came  over  and 
placed  him  tmder  arrest.  As  they  grabbed  him  to  take  him  to  the  police 
station  he  refused  to  go,  claiming  that  they  had  no  right  to  arrest  him 
as  he  had  done  nothing.  He  was  then  kicked  and  thrown  on  the  ground 
while  a  third  deputy  who  came  over,  hit  him  first  across  the  shoulders 
with  a  piece  of  iron  pipe  and  later  took  a  knife  out  and  deliberately  cut 
his  head  open." 

But  a  large  proportion  of  the  Interchurch  affidavits  are 
of  this  kind — mere  allegations  of  an  individual  that  he  was 
beaten  over  the  head  without  any  reason  or  grabbed  like  a 
dog  and  arrested  without  reason,  etc — none  of  them  sup- 
ported in  any  adequate  way,  none  of  them  cross-examined 
and  in  many  cases,  though  the  Interchurch  Report  calls 
them  affidavits  there  is  no  evidence  in  the  form  or  otherwise 
that  they  were  sworn  to. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       327 

Aside  from  the  points  already  emphasized — that  this  is  all 
evidence  of  highly  excited  and  incensed  men  reciting  their 
own  grievances,  and  that  the  affidavits  were  collected  and 
to  a  large  extent  formulated  not  by  impartial  investigators 
but  except  for  a  few  cases  by  one  highly  interested  individual 
or  his  representatives — there  are  two  outside  sources  of 
information  against  which  these  affidavits  can  at  least  in 
general  be  checked. 

As  has  been  stated  some  hundred  of  these  "atrocity" 
affidavits  were  sent  to  Governor  Sproul.  He  had  some  of 
the  worst  of  them  carefully  investigated  and  found  the 
allegations  to  be  utterly  without  foundation  or  highly 
colored  exaggerations  of  trivial  incidents.  The  facts 
brought  out  by  Governor  Sproul's  investigations  of  these 
affidavits  were  supplied  to  the  Senate  Committee  and  are 
published  with  the  detailed  statements  of  many  witnesses 
in  the  Senate  Hearings,  pages  879  to  906.  It  does  not  ap- 
pear from  the  records  that  Governor  Sproul  went  on  to  make 
a  detailed  examination  of  every  such  individual  allegation. 
The  Interchurch  Report  affidavits  here  considered  are  with 
one  exception  among  those  in  regard  to  which  there  is  no 
other  record  except  in  the  archives  of  the  local  police  or 
court. 

The  only  basis  on  which  such  affidavits  can  be  judged 
then  is  to  consider  their  source,  the  man  or  men  who  actu- 
ally composed  at  least  most  of  them  together  with  his  mo- 
tive and  the  use  to  which  he  originally  put  them,  the  fact 
that  many  other  affidavits  of  the  same  nature  and  from  this 
same  group  proved  under  careful  examination  by  Governor 
Sproul  or  the  Senate  Committee  to  be  without  any  sub- 
stantial basis  in  fact ;  that  many  of  them  cleverly  insinuate 
as  facts  what  they  will  not  thus  state  under  oath  as  facts, 
and  finally  that  the  Interchurch  Report  publishes  such 
affidavits  as  valid  evidence  after  they  have  been  repudiated 
under  oath  by  their  maker. 

In  this  particular  connection  thjs  fact  cannot  be  over- 
looked.    In  the  charges  of  "hundreds  wounded,  hundreds 


328    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

clubbed"  the  Interchurch  Report  often  and  particularly 
features  Braddock  as  one  of  the  storm  centers.  Father 
Kazinci  was  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  strike  leaders  in 
addition  to  his  relation  with  his  people  as  their  priest.  It 
seems  incredible  that  any  of  them  should  have  been  clubbed 
without  his  knowing  it.  Yet  in  repudiating  the  statement 
by  insinuation  of  the  clubbing  of  his  congregation  he  says 
he  never  saw  any  one  clubbed  and  only  knew  of  one  person 
being  clubbed  and  that  seems  not  to  have  been  at  all 
serious. 

There  are  a  surprising  number  of  the  Interchurch  affida- 
vits, however,  which  far  from  even  alleging  any  actual 
brutality  consist  chiefly  of  petty  complaints  of  obviously  tri- 
vial happenings  which  only  the  context  gives  any  particular 
significance  to.  Men  make  affidavits  to  the  fact  that  when 
they  were  arrested  they  didn't  get  dinner  for  seven  hours. 
On  page  187  the  Interchurch  Report  spends  one  whole 
affidavit  of  its  41  brutality  documents  alleging  that  George 
Koshel  was  arrested  in  a  perfectly  ordinary  way  and  fined 
$10  for  refusing  to  move  on  when  ordered  to  by  the  police. 
This  might  of  course  happen  under  any  conditions  in  any 
city  in  the  country. 

The  Interchurch  Report  spends  two  full  affidavits  and 
four  attestations  confirming  the  first  affidavit  which  is  in 
full  as  follows  (Vol.  II.,  page  187): 

"Ella  Syrko  of  633  Third  Street  at  about  7.15  a.m.  told  trooper  to  go 
to  bed  and  not  bother  around  her  house.  Trooper  swung  her  against 
the  door,  breaking  it  in.     This  woman  was  in  a  delicate  condition. " 

The  strike  leaders  brought  a  group  of  the  makers  of  such 
affidavits  to  the  Senate  Hearings.  The  record  shows  pages 
of  their  excited  and  obvious  exaggerations  of  such  triviali- 
ties, many  of  which  are  amusingly  contradictory.  Finally 
(Senate  Hearings,  page  786)  Senator  Stirling,  turning  to  Mr. 
Rubin,  the  strikers' attorney  asked: 

"Senator  Stirling:  Mr.  Rubin,  don't  you  think  this  is  a  little  far 
fetched  to  bring  a  man  on  the  stand,  as  precious  as  our  time  is  at  present, 
to  testify  that  somebody  shot  through  his  house?" 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       329 

But  Mr.  Rubin  did  not  withdraw  his  witness  and  the 
testimony  continued. 

"Senator  Stirling:  Where  did  you  J5nd  that  bullet? 

"  Mr.  Supinen:  Inside  of  the  stove  ...  it  went  through  the  wall  and 
went  through  the  stove  and  stopped  inside  of  the  stove. 

"Senator  Stirling:  Now  how  did  it  enter  the  stove? 

"  Mr.  Supinen:  It  went  through  the  stove  and  stopped  inside  of  the 
stove. 

"  Senator  Stirling:  It  is  a  cast-iron  stove  is  it? 

"  Mr.  Supinen:  A  cast-iron  stove. 

"  Senator  Stirling:  Would  not  you  have  supposed  that  it  would  have 
battered  that  bullet  if  it  went  through  the  house  and  the  stove?  The 
bullet  is  smooth." 

Finally  two  pages  later  the  testimony  ended  in  about  the 
way  it  had  continued,  as  follows : 

"Senator  Walsh:  Is  there  anybody  else  here  who  has  seen  the  hole  in 
the  house — in  the  wall? 
"Mr.  Supinen:  Yes,  sir. 

"Senator  Walsh:  You  are  the  only  one  here  who  saw  it? 
"  Mr.  Supinen:  Yes,  sir." 

After  Mr.  Rubin  had  put  a  Mr.  Colson  on  the  stand  to 
testify  as  to  what  kind  of  a  bullet  he  thought  the  one  found 
by  a  striker  in  his  house  was,  he  produced  Mary  Kropeck, 
whose  affidavit  the  Interchurch  Report  publishes  (page  186), 
doubly  attested.  The  Interchurch  Report  makes  no  refer- 
ence to  the  fact  that  the  important  Father  Kazinci  evidence 
was  cross-examined  under  oath  before  the  Senate  Com- 
mittee. It  does  not  mention  the  fact,  and  sufficiently 
changes  the  spelling  of  his  name  to  make  the  fact  difficult 
to  discover,  that  its  sensational  Brogan  evidence  was 
cross-examined  under  oath  before  the  Senate  Committee. 
But  it  calls  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  its  Kropeck 
affidavit  was  also  part  of  the  Senate  Hearings.  In  view  of 
this  fact  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  trivial  subject 
matter  of  this  affidavit  appears  so  increasing V  more  trivial 
through  three  pages  of  cross-examination  that  Mr.  Rubin 
himself  finally  shuts  it  off. 


330     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

All  such  circumstances — that  a  man  finds  a  bullet  in  his 
parlor  stove,  or  that  a  woman  is  fined  $io — are  of  course 
unfortunate.  But  under  the  strained  conditions  of  a  great 
strike  with  sullen  mobs  gathering  to  the  nimiber  of  4000  and 
attacking  a  public  building;  frequently  gathering  by  hun- 
dreds to  threaten  workmen  at  the  mill  gates;  throwing 
bricks  from  alleyways,  and  ashes  and  pepper  into  the  faces 
of  the  police;  parading  with  arms  and  issuing  threats; — 
all  of  which  violence  or  threats  of  violence  is  only  a  small 
part  of  that  brought  out  by  the  Senate  Committee  and  to 
which  specific  reference  is  made  herein — the  chief  wonder 
is  that  the  Interchurch  Report  finds  so  few  really  serious 
cases  that  it  spends  pages  detailing  how  a  man  didn't  get  his 
dinner  for  seven  hours,  that  some  flower  pots  were  broken 
and  chairs  overturned  and  that  children  didn't  sleep  one 
night ;  that  a  woman  was  pushed  roughly  against  a  door  or 
that  a  man  was  fined  $10  for  something  he  said  he  didn't  do. 

The  foregoing  "rock  bottom  affidavits"  deal  chiefly  with, 
or  have  been  analyzed  in  connection  with  their  allegations  of 
"police  brutality."  Most  of  these  "affidavits"  however, 
which  complain  of  arrest  also  complain  of  the  injustice  or 
discrimination  of  the  courts. 

In  its  general  summary  of  the  charges  as  to  "Denial  of 
Civil  Rights"  the  Interchurch  Report,  Volume  II,  page  177, 
repeating  in  substance  the  same  charge  in  Volume  I, 
particularly  emphasizes : 

"the  excessive  punishment  meted  out  to  these  strikers  by  the  different 
Justices  of  the  Peace,  Burgesses,  and  Police  courts  and  the  frank  discri- 
mination in  the  courts  between  those  who  were  at  work  and  those  who  were 
out  on  strike." 

In  addition  to  these  generalizations,  the  Interchurch 
Report  cites  the  following  specific  charge  (Volume  II,  page 
216)  that  in  Pittsburgh: — 

"  'Attorneys  for  the  strikers  testified  before  the  'Senate  Committee 
that  they  were  not  permitted  to  consult  with  their  clients;  that  they 
were  refused  transcripts  of  the  proceedings ;  that  magistrates  discharged 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       331 

men  who  promised  to  go  to  work  and  fined  others  who  insisted  on 
remaining  on  strike.'" 

The  facts  as  to  any  fine  or  imprisonment  including  the 
reason  for  such  fine  or  imprisonment  are  of  course  matters 
of  police  court  record.  The  Interchurch  Report  investiga- 
tors could  have  examined  those  records.  They  could  have 
talked  with  the  judge  in  the  case  concerning  those  records. 
Instead  of  this,  however,  they  merely  print  affidavit  after 
affidavit  from  the  prisoner  in  which  the  prisoner  affirms  he 
is  innocent  and  complains  that  his  sentence  of  $10  or  $15 
fine  or  5  or  ID  days  in  jail  was  unjust  and  excessive.  Does 
the  Interchurch  Report  think  that  the  average  prisoner 
ever  admits  his  guilt  or  is  unbiased  enough  to  discuss  his 
case  fairly  or  that  a  piling  up  of  protestations  of  prisoners 
that  they  were  not  guilty  proves  that  they  were  not  guilty? 

The  Senate  Committee,  however,  did  go  into  this  widely 
repeated  charge  of  the  strike  leaders  that  police  and  judges 
"frankly  discriminated  against  strikers,"  going  in  detail 
into  the  one  specific  case  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
brings  up,  that  quoted  above  in  regard  to  Pittsbtirgh.  The 
Interchurch  Report,  features  that  "Attorneys  for  the 
strikers  testified  before  the  Senate  Committee"  as  to  such 
discrimination  as  though  the  mere  fact  that  they  testified 
proved  the  case.  It  is  strangely  silent,  however,  on  what 
that  testimony  showed  under  cross-examination  and  in  re- 
gard to  the  other  evidence. 

The  "Attorneys  for  the  strikers"  were  Mr.  McNair  and 
Mr.  C.  W.  Sypniewski.  The  former's  testimony  is  con- 
tained on  pages  575  to  581  and  the  latter's  on  pages  587  to 
596.  They  allege  about  what  the  Interchurch  Report  al- 
leges, namely  that : 

1.  They  were  "not  permitted  to  consult  with  .  .  . 
clients." 

2.  They  "were  refused  transcripts  of  the  proceedings." 

3.  "The  magistrates  discharged  men  who  promised  to 
go  to  work  and  fined  others  who  insisted  on  remaining  on 
strike." 


332     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  Senate  Committee  called  the  Pittsburgh  Police 
Commissioner  Peter  P.  Walsh  and  cross-examined  him  under 
oath  (Senate  Hearings,  pages  681-687)  in  regard  to,  among 
other  things,  these  three  complaints  of  Attorney  Sypnie- 
wski  that — 

I.  "Strikers*  lawyers  were  not  permitted  to  consult  with 
their  clients." 

"Senator  McKellar:  It  has  been  testified  at  this  hearing  that  even 
when  a  person  charged  with  being  a  suspicious  person  had  lawyers  to 
represent  him,  that  the  judge  of  the  court  would  not  permit  the  lawyer 
to  examine  him,  .  .  . 

"Mr.  Walsh:  Well,  in  the  last  three  weeks  there  have  been  three 
different  attorneys  here.  Perhaps  I  could  enlighten  you  if  I  knew  which 
one  said  he  was  refused.    That  man  Sypniewski?    Was  that  the  man? 

"  Senator  Phipps:  Yes. 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  I  can  state  about  him. 

"Senator  Phipps:  Go  ahead. 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  He  came  over  there  in  the  morning  and  he  said, '  I  am  to 
represent  some  of  these  men.  Judge.'  He  said,  'Who?'  He  said,  'I  do 
not  know.  I  want  to  go  into  the  cell  room.'  I  said, '  How  do  you  know 
who  you  represent  if  you  have  not  got  his  name?'  'Well,'  he  said,  'he 
was  arrested.'  I  said, '  Give  me  his  name.  There  are  7  men  back  there; 
give  me  the  name,  and  whatever  man  you  are  representing  I  will  bring 
him  out.'  He  could  not  tell.  I  said,  'Wait  tmtil  the  hearing  begins,  and 
if  you  can  recognize  him  and  he  asks  you  to  be  his  counsel  point  him  out 
and  you  can  defend  him.' 

"  The  Chairman:  Did  not  you  know  that  he  was  employed  by  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  to  represent  its  men  who  had  been  ar- 
rested there? 

"Mr.  Walsh:  No,  sir,  he  did  not  make  that  known.  The  hearing 
began  and  there  was  one  man  that  came  up — there  were  four  men  who 
were  arrested  and  charged  with  being  suspicious  persons.  They  were 
arrested  in  an  alleyway  up  near  30th  Street,  around  5  o'clock  where  there 
had  been  several  complaints  of  men  being  attacked  going  to  work.  Those 
four  men  came  down,  and  I  asked  him, '  Is  any  one  of  these  four  men  the 
man  you  represent.'  He  pointed  out  a  man  and  I  said, '  All  right. '  The 
Judge  asked  this  man  'Are  you  a  citizen?'  This  man  said  he  could  not 
speak  English.  Mr.  Sypniewski  said,  'He  cannot  speak  English.'  The 
Judge  says, '  He  knows  what  I  am  talking  about.'  Mr.  Sypniewski  then 
said,  'If  you  was  in  France  you  would  not  be  able  to  understand  French.' 
He  (the  Judge)  said,  'I  was  in  France,'  and  Sypniewski  yelled  out,  'You 
are  a  liar;  you  never  were  in  France.' " 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       333 

After  this  it  seems  that  this  strikers'  attorney  hurriedly 
left  the  court  room. 

After  Attorney  Sypniewski  had  thus  left  court  Mr. 
McNair  according  to  his  own  testimony  (page  576)  was 
sent  to  take  Mr.  Sypniewski 's  place. 

"Mr.  McNair:  The  attorney  before  me  had  been  expelled  from  the 
court  and  refused — they  had  refused  him  permission  to  defend  a  man,  and  I 
was  taking  his  place. " 

He  thus  obviously  got  into  court  late  when  it  seems  but 
three  persons  remained.  In  regard  to  his  complaints  about 
not  being  allowed  to  represent  strikers,  Mr.  Walsh  testified 
as  follows  (page  687) : 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  I  believe  they  had  a  man  here  this  morning  that  com- 
plained; ...  by  the  name  of  McNair.  This  man  came  here,  and  he 
said  he  came  to  represent  some  person  but  he  didn't  know  who;  and 
three  men  came  out  charged  with  being  drunk  and  he  stepped  up  to 
defend  those  men  and  he  did  not  know  the  men  and  he  didn't  know  who 
he  was  to  defend.     They  were  discharged  by  the  magistrate. ' ' 

A  third  attorney,  Mr.  Brennan,  testified  that  they  (the 
Courts)  "always  treated  me  right  over  here." 

2.  Strikers'  Attorneys  were  refused  transcripts  of  the 
proceedings. 

After  Attorney  Sypniewski  had  left  court  as  already 
described,  it  seems  he  came  back. 

"Mr.  Walsh:  He  went  out  and  later  on  he  says,  'I  want  some  tran- 
scripts.' I  said, '  Leave  75  cents  for  all  you  want  and  you  can  get  them. 
You  as  an  attorney  know  you  have  five  days  to  take  an  appeal.' 

"Senator  McKellar:  Was  75  cents  the  only  cost  for  the  transcripts? 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  For  each  one. 

"Senator  McKellar:  Was  there  any  reason  why  any  lawyer  could  not 
take  an  appeal  upon  paying  75  cents? 

"Mr.  Walsh:  Not  at  all." 

Moreover  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Attorney  Sypniewski 
had  specifically  alleged  that  he  couldn't  get  transcripts  he 
later  testified  (page  592,  Senate  Hearings) : 


334    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"  This  is  one  of  the  men  I  represented  and  here  is  the  whole  transcript. " 
"Lieutenant  McAfee  sworn :  Arrested  defendant  at  1.45  in  front  of 
2520  Carson  Street  for  stopping  men  on  the  street.  Had  much  trouble 
on  the  street  with  this  man  last  week.  Ordered  him  away  several  times. 
Officer  Connors  sworn:  Defendant  has  been  stopping  men  going  to 
work  .  .  .  warned  him  several  times.  Officer  McCullough  sworn:  Have 
had  complaints  of  this  man,  etc.,  etc. " 

Attorney  Sypniewski  brought  up  this  transcript  to  allege 
that  it  was  inaccurate  in  that  according  to  him  the  true 
testimony  was  that : 

"  This  man  came  out  of  a  pool  room  and  there  was  complaints  by  the 
pool  room  keeper  against  threatening  other  people  in  that  house  and 
they  arrested  this  man  as  he  came  out. ' ' 

Whatever  else  Attorney  Sypniewski  showed  by  this  point 
he  at  least  showed  he  could  and  did  get  his  transcripts. 

3.  Judges  and  magistrates  "frankly  discriminated 
against  strikers." 

Senator  McKellar  in  cross-examining  Mr.  Walsh  sum- 
marized strikers'  Attorney  McNair's  charge  of  discrimina- 
tion against  strikers  with  special  reference  to  certain  particu- 
lar cases  and  questioned  Mr.  Walsh  as  follows  (Senate 
Hearings,  page  685) : 

"Senator  McKellar:  There  has  been  a  charge  made  here  that  there  is 
a  custom  of  arresting  those  who  look  like  strikers  on  a  charge  of  (being) 
suspicious  persons  .  .  .  (when)  brought  up  before  this  particular 
magistrate  he  asked  them  whether  they  were  citizens  or  whether  they 
were  foreigners  and  whether  they  were  at  work.  ...  If  they  said  they 
were  at  work  they  were  discharged  but  if  they  said  they  were  not  at 
work,  well,  they  were  put  in  jail  and  fined  and  put  in  jail  and  kept  in 
jail.    Is  that  correct? 

"Mr.  Walsh:  No,  sir. 

"  Senator  McKellar:  Explain  that,  please. 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  Well,  they  have  been  arrested  at  5  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing or  half  past  5  or  6  o'clock,  four  or  five  men  who  were  standing  in  alley- 
ways and  doorways  near  the  street  car  stands.  .  .  .  They  interfered  with 
the  men  going  to  work  and  wherever  they  may  be  going.  In  a  great 
many  cases  we  found  bricks  in  their  pockets.    These  men  were  charged 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       335 

with  being  suspicious  persons  and  were  arrested  at  5.30  o'clock  and 
they  had  a  hearing  on  the  charge  at  8  o'clock.  The  judge  would  ask 
them  if  they  were  at  work.  He  said, ' No.'  Then  the  Judge  would  say 
to  him — he  would  ask,  'What  were  you  doing  out  on  the  street  at  5 
o'clock  in  the  morning  with  a  brick  in  your  pocket?'  They  would  say, 
'I  don't  know.'  Then  the  Judge  would  say,  'Are  you  on  a  strike?' 
They  would  say,  'I  don't  know.'  Then  the  Judge  would  ask,  'Are  you 
a  citizen?'    'No.' 

"He  would  then  get  a  man  to  interpret  and  speak  to  this  man,  and 
the  judge  would  ask  the  question, '  What  were  you  doing  on  the  street  or 
in  the  alleyway  with  a  brick  in  yoiu-  pocket  at  5  o'clock  in  the  morning,' 
and  they  would  not  answer  the  question. 

"Senator  Stirling:  The  officer  had  previously  testified  that  that  was 
the  condition  in  which  he  found  the  men? 

"  Mr.  Walsh:  Yes,  sir,  and  he  would  show  the  brick  to  the  magistrate. 
Before  the  magistrate  would  question  the  person  he  would  take  the 
testimony  of  the  officer, 

"Senator  Stirling:  Is  that  lawyer  (strikers'  attorney  McNair)  here? 

"Mr.  Rubin:  No. 

"Senator  Walsh:  That  man  omitted  any  reference  to  the  brick." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE   ACTUAL   PURPOSE  AND   EFFECT   OF   THE 
INTERCHURCH  REPORT 

The  object  of  the  publication  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike  six  months  after  the  end  of  the  strike  it- 
self was,  according  to  the  statement  of  the  Report  itself 
(pages  3  and  4) ,  to  call  public  attention : 

(i) — to  what  the  Interchurch  Report  states  were  the  real 
facts  at  issue  in  the  steel  strike  which  it  states  were  "un- 
comprehended  by  the  nation,"  and  also  the  "engulfing  cir- 
cumstances" which  also  persist,  both  of  which  it  seems  to 
think  are  "in  general  characteristic  of  American  industrial 
developments." 

(2) — to  the  alleged  fact  that  "the  main  issues  were  not 
settled  by  the  strike." 

(3) — to  the  alleged  fact  that  the  steel  industry  therefore 
continues  "in  a  state  of  latent  war"  in  which  employers  and 
employees  are  both  "merely  waiting  for  the  next  strike." 

(4) — and  finally  to  the  alleged  fact  that  "if  the  steel  in- 
dustry is  to  find  a  peaceful  way  out  of  its  present  state  (of 
latent  war)  it  must  do  so  on  the  basis  of  a  general  under- 
standing (by  the  public)  of  such  facts  as  are  here  (in  the 
report)  set  forth. ' ' 

In  other  words  the  Interchurch  Report,  signed  by  prom- 
inent religious  leaders  of  the  country  and  countersigned 
by  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  and  certain  of  whose 
signers  have  publicly  stated  that  it  represents  the  official 
opinion  of  American  Protestantism,  definitely  states  that  it 

336 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       337 

embodies  the  results  of  a  careful  impartial  study  of  one  of 
America's  greatest  basic  industries  and  constitutes  an  im- 
partial report  to  the  American  people  of  conditions  in  that 
industry  on  which  it  is  recommended  that  they  judge  that 
industry. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  a  careful  analysis  of  the  Re- 
port itself  clearly  shows  that  the  Interchurch  Report  is  in 
no  sense  a  careful  or  impartial  study  of  conditions  in  the 
steel  industry.  For  entirely  in  addition  to  its  mere  assump- 
tions, its  unwarranted  and  sweeping  generalizations  and 
other  faulty  methods  of  argument  which  constantly  lead  it 
into  palpable  self-contradictions  and  other  logical  absurdi- 
ties, the  Report  itself  admits  at  the  outset  that  it  bases  its 
conclusions  chiefly  on  "500  affidavits"  largely  of  low-skilled 
foreigners — it  deliberately  leaves  out  practically  all  the 
important  facts  that  in  any  way  favor  the  steel  companies, 
and  constantly  resorts  to  a  studied  expurgation  of  testimony 
and  other  evidence,  to  misleading  insinuations  and  state- 
ments and  to  the  clever  manipulation  of  statistics  and  tables 
in  an  effort  to  make  plausible  entirely  false  and  obviously 
preconceived  hypotheses  and  conclusions.' 

The  question  remains,  and  is  very  pertinent,  as  to  just 
what  these  obviously  pre-conceived  hypotheses  and  conclu- 
sions are.  In  other  words,  what  is  the  actual  purpose  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  as  far  as  that  purpose  can  be  deter- 
mined by  an  analysis  of  the  Report  itself,  and  where  do  the 
fallacious  arguments,  which  it  goes  to  such  lengths  to  bolster 
up,  actually  lead  ? 

* "  It  (the  Interchurch  Report)  has  quite  obviously  been  prepared 
from  the  standpoint  of  some  mind  convinced  beforehand  that  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  is  an  insincere,  oppressive  and  iniqui- 
tous organization  .  .  .  the  Interchurch  protested  impartiality  and 
those  who  saw  the  inquiry  begin  certainly  expected  something  like  a 
judicial  rendering  of  opinion— not  a  brief  for  the  prosecution. " 

The  Continent  (Presbyterian), 
Editorial,  Nov.  4,  1920. 


338     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

From  the  first  appearance  of  the  Report — as  a  matter  of 
fact,  during  the  investigation  that  preceded  the  Report,  it 
has  been  widely  alleged  that  the  Investigation  was  largely 
conducted  by  radicals  and  that  the  Report  itself  was  largely 
merely  radical  propaganda.  Such  allegations,  however, 
were  in  general  based  on  entirely  insufficient  evidence  and 
contained  many  obvious  misstatements  of  fact.  Moreover, 
most  such  allegations  dealt  chiefly  in  personalities  and  paid 
only  a  minimum  of  attention  to  the  principal  fact,  i.  e. — 
the  merits  of  the  Report  itself. 

The  New  York  State  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radical- 
ism, the  most  thorough  and  competent  official  study  yet 
undertaken  on  this  subject,  states  on  pages  1137  and  1138: 

"  The  most  recent  proof  of  the  invasion  of  the  churches  by  subversive 
influences  is  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  by  a  committee  appointed  by 
the  Interchurch  World  Movement.  ...  It  is  not  generally  known  that 
the  direction  of  this  inquiry  was  not  in  the  hands  of  unbiased  investiga- 
tors. The  principal  'experts'  are  David  J.  Saposs  and  George  Sotde 
(Heber  Blankenhorn  joined  the  investigatorslater) — whose  radical  view- 
points may  be  gathered  from  their  association  with  Mr.  Evans  Clark 
acting  under  the  direction  of  Ludwig  C.  A.  K.  Martens,  head  of  the 
Soviet  Bureau  in  the  United  States,  their  connection  also  with  the  Rand 
School  of  Social  Science,  and  certain  revolutionary  labor  organizations." 

Again  in  many  cases  in  the  present  analysis,  arguments 
and  points  of  view  in  the  Interchurch  Report  have  been 
pointed  out  as  being  exactly  parallel  to  arguments  and 
points  of  view  advanced  by  radicals  and  in  certain  instances 
it  had  been  pointed  out  that  arguments  presented  by  the 
Interchurch  Report  undoubtedly  show  a  distinct  sympathy 
with  radicalism. 

The  term  radicalism,  however,  is  in  general  so  loosely  used 
to  mean  anything,  depending  on  the  user,  from  merely  an 
intelligent  questioning  of  modem  economic  values  to  pure 
Bolshevism  that  it  is  correspondingly  important  that  in  an 
analysis  of  the  Interchurch  Report  in  regard  to  its  possible 
radicalism,  the  term  "radicalism"  should  be  specifically  de- 
fined and  used  merely  within  these  limits. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       339 

In  so  far  as  it  is  significant  to  the  present  consideration, 
radicalism  consists  of  the  advocacy  of — 

First:  a  revolutionary,  as  distinct  from  an  evolutionary, 
change  in  our  modern  social  and  industrial  system — the  basic 
fulcrum  of  that  change  being  the  ownership  and  operation  of 
industry  by  the  workers  themselves,  and 

Second:  the  bringing  about  of  such  revolutionary  change 
by  other  means  than  those  of  the  orderly  processes  of  gov- 
ernment by  majority  action. 

In  other  words  a  consideration  of  radicalism  involves  a 
consideration  not  only  of  the  radical  theories  themselves, 
but  also  of  the  means  advocated  for  carrying  out  those 
radical  theories.  For  it  must  be  clearly  recognized  even  by 
the  most  bitter  opponents  of  radicalism  that  throughout 
history  the  various  social  and  industrial  systems  which  in 
the  heighths  of  their  acceptance  were  the  basis  and  bul- 
wark of  conservatism,  were  generally,  at  the  time  of  their 
inception,  regarded  as  radical.  While  therefore  much  that 
is  called  radicalism  may  be  combatted — and  is  combatted 
by  the  great  majority  of  Americans — as  unsound  and  unde- 
sirable, nevertheless  the  men  who  advocate  such  theories 
and  seek  to  extend  them,  are  entirely  within  their  rights  as 
American  citizens,  so  long  as  they  only  seek  to  extend  such 
theories  by  persuading  a  majority  of  their  fellow  citizens  of  their 
desirability  and  seek  only  to  bring  about  such  changes  by 
orderly  processes  of  majority  self-government. ' 

'It  is  necessaiy  to  make  a  distinction  though  that  distinction  is  gen- 
erally somewhat  vague  and  often  imaginary — between  radical  theories 
and  some  of  the  individuals  who  hold  those  theories.  An  individual, 
may  hold  theories  which  are  themselves  revolutionary,  which  actually 
could  only  be  realized  through  revolutionary  action,  and  whose  main 
body  of  adherents  and  their  official  leaders  recognize  as  revolutionary 
and  necessitating  revolutionary  measures,  yet  such  an  individual  may 
protest  that  he  is  trying  to  realize  those  aims  only  through  peaceful 
evolutionary  means.  Undoubtedly  in  some  cases  such  protestations 
are  sincere;  in  many  others  they  are  a  mere  cloak  behind  which  the 
individual  radical  believes  he  can  work  most  effectively. 

One  such  individual  for  instance  in  a  private  conversation  with  the 


340     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Modem  radicalism  does  not  seek  to  advance  its  theories 
through  orderly  processes  of  government  by  means  of 
majority  action.  On  the  contrary  it  definitely  and  admit- 
tedly  seeks  to  bring  about  its  revolutionary  changes  through 
deception  and  a  strategic  application  of  force  against,  or  ir- 
respective of,  the  will  of  the  majority.  August  Claessens, 
socialist  member  of  the  New  York  State  Legislature,  said  in 
a  speech  at  the  Park  View  Palace  November  7,  1919: 

"If  we  thought  for  a  minute  it  (socialism)  was  merely  ...  a  great 
political  controversy,  until  we  have  a  majority  of  men  elected,  and  then 
by  merely  that  majority  declare  the  revolution,  if  any  of  you  smoke 
that  pipe  dream;  if  that  is  the  quality  of  opium  you  are  puflSng  now, 
give  it  up,  give  it  up." 

The  American  Socialist  Left  Wing  Manifesto  of  June, 
1919, says: 

"The  conquest  of  the  power  of  the  state  is  an  extra-parliamentary 
act.  It  is  accomplished  not  by  legislative  representatives  of  the  pro- 
letariat, but  by  .  .  .  the  political  mass  strike.  .  .  .  The  power  of  the 
proletariat  lies  fundamentally  in  its  control  of  the  industrial  process." 

author  and  another  person,  expressed  the  hope  that  his  theories  about  the 
ownership  of  industry  by  the  workers  could  be  realized  peaceably.  He 
stated  however  that  they  would  be  realized  by  revolution  if  necessary 
and  stated  particularly  that  if  the  government  should  attempt  certain 
action  which  President  Harding  specifically  recommended  in  his  last 
message,  the  revolution  would  come  within  five  years.  Because  of  this 
and  other  expressions  of  very  radical  opinion,  the  writer  asked  him  why 
he  did  not  have  the  mental  honesty  and  moral  courage  to  express  such 
views  openly  instead  of  posing  publicly  as  a  mere  ' '  liberal. ' '  He  replied 
that  it  was  because  he  believed  he  could  "  serve  the  cause  better  outside 
of  jail  than  in." 

The  term  "radical"  therefore  as  used  in  the  present  analysis,  when 
applied  to  a  theory  or  movement,  means  a  theory  or  movement  that 
aims  at  revolutionary  changes  which  its  official  advocates  propose  or 
seek  to  carry  out  by  revolutionary  measures.  When  applied  to  an 
individual  it  means  one  who  advocates  or  is  working  to  advance 
such  theories  or  movement?  irrespective  of  what  he  may  individually 
think  or  admit  about  the  way  they  should  be  carried  out. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       341 

Moreover  that  all  schools  of  modem  radicalism  advocate 
the  accomplishment  of  their  ends,  not  through  legitimate 
majority  legislative  action  but  through  getting  control  of 
the  production  of  all  the  peoples'  necessities  of  life  by  organ- 
izing and  controlling  the  workers,  and  then  using  that  con- 
trol to  force  the  acceptance  of  its  further  theories,  is  stated 
as  a  fundamental  principle  of  all  radicalism  by  Eden  and 
Cedar  Paul  in  their  "Creative  Revolution" — ^in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Socialist  Party — in  the  constitution  of  the 
I.  W.  W. — in  manifestos  of  the  Communist  party — ^in 
printed  literature  of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers — 
by  Mr.  Foster  and  his  group  of  radicals  working  within  the 
A.  F.  of  L. — and  by  all  other  known  radical  groups. 

Radicalism,  as  thus  defined,  consists  of  many  schools 
whose  theories  and  objects  and  methods  differ  in  detail.  All 
of  them,  however,  irrespective  of  whether  their  ultimate  aim 
may  be  the  enforced  revolution  of  society  to  an  anarchistic, 
socialistic,  syndicalist,  or  other  state,  are  seeking  to  bring 
about  that  revolution  by  certain  definite  methods.  These 
are: 

First:  the  control  of  industry  through  an  organization  of  the  workers; 

Second:  this  organization  of  the  workers  to  be  along  industrial  imion 
lines,  as  opposed  to  craft  union  lines,  with  a  view  of  bringing  all  the 
workers  in  any  given  industry  under  united  control  in  order  to  make 
possible  the  "general  strike"; 

Third:  agitation  and  propaganda  among  all  workers  to  the  effect  that 
under  the  present  system  they  are  invariably  and  inevitably  exploited 
by  their  employers,  through  the  employer's  alleged  control  of  the  gov- 
ernment, the  courts,  the  police  power,  the  army  and  all  present  forces 
of  law  and  order,  and  that  therefore  all  these  forces  must  be  fought  by 
the  workers; 

Fourth:  it  is  generally  possible  of  course  for  radicals  to  keep  secret 
or  cover  up  their  unlawful  conspiracies  and  often  their  acts.  Agita- 
tion and  propaganda,  however,  which  are  necessary  to  influence  and 
organize  the  workers,  cannot  be  thus  hid.  All  radicals  therefore  insist 
that "  the  right  of  free  speech '"  be  made  absolute  under  all  circvunstances. 
They  demand  constantly  and  loudly  that  neither  the  courts  or  police  or 
local  officials  or  local  public  opinion  as  a  whole  shall  be  permitted  to 
prevent  their  saying  or  writing  anything  they  please  including  the  coun- 
ciling  and  urging  of  criminal  acts. 


342     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Fifth:  in  addition  to  the  organization  of  the  workers  into  industrial 
unions,  under  a  single  control,  as  a  means  of  controlling  and  owning 
industry,  all  radicals  seek  to  facilitate  and  hasten  the  ownership  and 
control  of  their  industry  through  the  practice  of  every  possible  device 
which  will  make  the  ownership  and  control  of  industry  unprofitable  or 
otherwise  undesirable  to  present  ownership  and  management.  Radical- 
ism's principal  and  most  emphasized  such  device  is  that  of  forcing  up 
wages  so  disproportionately  to  production  that  the  business  caimot  be 
run  at  a  profit  and  therefore  cannot  maintain  or  obtain  operating  capital 
to  continue. 

Sixth:  with  the  same  object  of  making  industry  unprofitable  to  its 
present  owners,  radicalism  admittedly  openly  preaches  and  encotirages 
sabotage; 

Seventh:  in  order  to  give  its  workers  free  scope  in  practising  sabotage 
and  carrying  out  other  practices  to  the  detriment  of  their  industry  and 
as  a  means  of  getting  control  of  their  industry  more  and  more  in  the 
hands  of  the  workers,  radicalism  continually  insists  on  the  adoption  of 
every  type  of  device  that  will  take  the  possibility  of  disciplining  or 
controlling  the  workers  out  of  the  hands  of  the  employers,  even  to  the 
extentof  openly  denying  the  employer  the  right  to  hire  or  discharge  the 
workers. 

Because  radicalism's  whole  object  is  the  dictatorship  over 
the  majority  by  a  minority  class  which  it  can  only  hope  to 
achieve  by  strategy,  and  because  its  aims  and  methods  are 
in  general  so  unlawful  that  many  of  its  leaders  have  gone  to 
jail  for  a  too  open  acknowledgment  of  them,  radicals  today 
are  particularly  careful  to  state  those  aims  specifically  only 
where  necessary  and  to  state  only  as  much  of  them  as  is 
necessary  under  the  circumstances.  Doubtless  largely  for 
the  same  reason,  radicals  have  also  adopted  an  elaborate 
technical  phraseology,  whose  meaning  is  entirely  clear  to  all 
fellow  radicals  and  can  easily  be  made  clear  by  word  of 
mouth  to  those  for  whom  it  is  intended,  but  is  not  sufficiently 
explicit  to  make  its  full  import  entirely  clear  to  the  average 
non-radical  reader.  It  is  almost  invariably  necessary  there- 
fore in  order  to  get  the  full  meaning  of  almost  any  radical 
document  to  build  up  the  true  meaning  through  a  compari- 
son with  many  other  utterances  that  are  known  to  be 
radical. 

The  Interchurch  Report  of  course  assumes  to  be  some- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       343 

thing  very  different  from  radical  propaganda.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case,  therefore,  if  it  is  radical  propaganda,  as 
has  been  so  frequently  alleged,  its  chief  hope  of  effective- 
ness as  such  propaganda  would  consist  chiefly  of  keeping 
that  fact  from  being  apparent. 

A  careful  comparison,  however,  of  the  main  and  most 
featured  arguments  and  conclusions  of  the  Interchurch 
Report,  with  the  seven  main  principles  and  aims  of  radical- 
ism as  above  stated,  together  with  a  careful  comparison  of 
statements  in  regard  to  those  principles  and  aims  made  by 
leading  known  radicals  with  the  arguments  and  conclu- 
sions and  phraseology  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the 
same  subjects  clearly  brings  out  a  number  of  facts  that 
are  entirely  unapparent  in  a  casual  reading  of  the 
Report. 

The  seven  main  principles  and  objects  of  modem  radical- 
ism have  been  stated  as : 

FIRST,  the  control  of  industry  through  an  organization  of 
the  workers. 

The  Interchurch  Report  insists  throughout  on  the  neces- 
sity of  the  organization  of  the  steel  workers.  It  is  of  course 
true  that  the  necessity  of  the  organization  of  the  workers 
is  also  insisted  on  by  many  entirely  non-radical  trade 
unionists  and  is  advocated  by  many  thinkers  who  have  no 
connection  with  either  radicals  or  the  workers  themselves. 
But  while  non-radical  trade  unionism  insists  on  organiza- 
tion of  the  workers  by  crafts,  all  radicalism  denounces  craft 
unionism  which,  as  such,  works  against  radicalism,  and 
insists  on — 

SECOND,  the  organization  of  the  workers  along  industrial 
lines  with  One  Big  Union  under  one  control  in  each  entire 
industry. 

Eugene  V.  Debs  says : 

"The  trade  union  is  outgrown  and  its  survival  is  an  unmitigated  evil 
to  the  working  class.  Craft  unionism  is  not  only  impotent  but  a  crime 
against  the  workers." 


344     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  preamble  to  the  constitution  of  the  Amalgamated 
Textile  Workers,  an  ultra-radical  union  associated  with  the 
Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers,  states  in  terms  that  are' 
typical  of  similar  statements  in  the  constitutions  of  other 
radical  unions,  that : 

"  The  working  class  must  accept  the  principles  of  industrial  unionism 
or  it  is  doomed  to  impotence." 

The  New  International  (an  official  radical  propaganda 
organ)  in  February,  191 8,  states  what  all  radicals  were  par- 
ticularly emphasizing  at  the  time,  that — 

"We  are  convinced  that  the  technical  development  of  the  capitalist 
world  makes  conditions  ripe  (for  industrial  unionism)  ...  at  tliis  very 
moment."  ... 

The  Interchurch  Report  continually  condemns  craft 
unions  and  definitely  presents  the  exact  argument  of  Debs 
and  other  radicals  that  craft  unionism  is  inimical  and  in- 
dustrial unionism  favorable  to  the  interests  of  the  workers 
and  that  economic  conditions  are  making  industrial 
unionism  inevitable. 

It  tells  the  steel  workers  (on  page  15)  that  the  "indiffer- 
ence, selfishness  or  narrow  habit"  of  the  A.  F.  of  L. (craft 
unions)  was  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the  defeat  of  the 
strike. 

It  speaks  on  page  157  of  the  officers  of  the  A.  F.  of  L. 
(craft  unions)  tending  to  be  "job  holders  rather  than 
apostles"  and  more  expert  "in  figuring  out  scales  of  dues  for 
their  own  organizations  than  in  figuring  out  what  is  due  to 
laborers." 

It  says  on  page  179  that  many  of  the  workers  felt  "they 
had  been  let  down  by  the  Labor  Movement"  (craft  unions) 
and  in  general — though  usually  indirectly  by  the  addition 
of  "it  is  alleged"  or  "the  workers  thought" — the  whole 
Report  continually  undermines  craft  unionism. 

In  regard  to  industrial  unionism,  it  says  on  page  159: 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       345 

"  economic  conditions  .  .  .  have  exposed  weaknesses  in  craft  unions 
.  .  .  when  craft  unions  promulgate  ambitions  .  .  .  they  are  forced 
automatically  to  considering  industrial  union  problems," 

and  again  on  page  158: 

"The  real  problem  which  confronts  A.  F.  of  L.  trade  unions  ...  is 
industrial  unionism,  and  the  larger  side  of  it  is  .  .  .  economic 
conditions."'  . 

THIRD,  radical  agitation  and  propaganda  always  em- 
phasizes to  the  workers  that  they  are,  under  the  present  system 
invariably  and  inevitably  exploited  by  their  employers  through 
the  employers'  alleged  control  of  the  government,  the  courts, 
the  police  power,  the  army,  and  all  present  forces  of  law  and 
order,  and  that  therefore  all  these  forces  must  be  fought  by  the 
workers. 

Even  the  most  casual  reader  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
cannot  fail  to  note  its  constant  condemnations — often 
qualified,  but  generally  more  effective  for  the  qualifications 
— of  courts,  magistrates,  the  Attorney  General  of  the 
United  States,  public  officials,  the  police;  and  its  constant 
insistence  to  the  workers  that  all  these  were  used  against 
them  and  in  favor  of  the  steel  trust  and  that  this  was  one 
of  the  chief  causes  why  they  lost  the  strike.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  not  only  the  attitude  of  the  Interchurch  Report  itself 
towards  all  the  forces  of  law  and  order  in  the  country,  but 
the  pecuHar  grounds  on  which  it  condemns  them  and  the 
peculiar  phraseology  it  uses  in  this  connection  cannot  fail 
to  be  noted. 

To  any  one  familiar  with  average  radical  propaganda 
literature,  these  sections  of  the  Interchurch  Report  are 
self-explanatory.  A  comparison  of  these  sections  with  any 
typical  radical  propaganda  document  cannot  but  make  this 

'  The  way  in  which  the  Interchurch  Report  carefully  leads  up, 
through  ntunerous  tentative  qualified  statements,  to  these  definite 
statements  has  been  pointed  out  in  Chapter  XVI  and  specifically 
emphasized  in  the  footnote  on  page  204. 


346     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

plain  even  to  those  most  unfamiliar  with  radical  aims  and 
methods. 

Just  about  the  time  of  the  steel  strike,  the  New  York 
branch  of  the  Communist  party — undoubtedly  the  most 
radical  organization  in  America — issued  a  manifesto  to  the 
longshoremen  who  were  then  engaged  in  an  "outlaw"  strike. 
This  manifesto  is  a  typically  radical  document,  in  the  propa- 
ganda it  seeks  to  advance,  in  the  forces  of  present  govern- 
ment it  attacks,  and  in  technical,  radical  phraseology  which 
means  much  more  to  the  radical  than  it  does  to  the  average 
American  reader. 

This  official  Communist  Manifesto  says: 

"  I.  Workers  .  .  .  you  have  repudiated  your  scab  form  of  A.  F.  of  L. 
unionism.  You  must  .  .  .  imite  with  all  those  who  are  employed  in 
the  transportation  industry  for  One  Big  Industrial  Transport  Workers' 
Union." 

On  this  specific  point  the  Interchurch  Report  on  page 
159  says: 

"When  a  craft  vuiion  on  strike  sees  brother  unions  in  the  same. in- 
dustry sticking  to  work  or  even  filling  the  strikers'  jobs  (i.  e.  scabbing)  that 
craft  union  begins  to  do  a  lot  more  thinking  about  industrial  unionism." 

The  Communist  Manifesto  says: 

"The  bosses  hired  their  strike  breakers /row  strike-breaking  agencies." 

One  of  the  most  featured  charges  which  the  Interchurch 
Report  brings  against  the  steel  companies  in  Chapter  VII 
is  that  they  hired  "strike  breakers"  and  it  spends  pages  in 
emphasizing  that  they  sometimes  hired  them  from  "strike- 
breaking agencies." 

The  Manifesto  continues: 

"Now  they  use  the  army  itself  as  a  strike-breaking  agency." 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  pages  238,  241  and  242, 
emphasizes:  "the  use  of  the  Federal  army  to  break  the 
strike." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       347 
Again,  the  Communist  Manifesto  says: 

"The  Government  (Federal)  Wage  adjustment  Board,  ...  did  it 
decide  in  your  favor?" 

The  Interchurch  Report  says  on  page  238 : 

"Federal  officials,  particularly  the  Federal  Department  of  Justice, 
help  to  break  strikes." 

The  Communist  Manifesto  says: 

"  The  police,  whose  heads  are  they  going  to  crack,  when  you  go  on  the 
picket  line?" 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  page  238  says: 

"...  police  officials  try  to  break  strikes,"  and  on  page  240  it  says: 
"the  charge  of  beatings  and  clubbings  (of  strikers  by  the  police)  were 
endless  and  monotonous." 

The  Communist  Manifesto  says : 

"The  Press!  whose  side  are  the  newspapers  taking,  yours  or  the 
bosses?" 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  page  238  says: 

"Most  newspapers  actively  and  promptly  exert  a  strike-breaking 
influence"  and  repeats  the  same  statement  on  page  242  and  elsewhere. 

The  Communist  Manifesto  says : 

"Don't  you  see  that  the  bosses  own  and  control  the  whole  govern- 
mental machinery?  " 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  page  242  says : 

"...  that  local  and  national  government  not  only  was  not  their 
government  [i.e.  in  their  behalf],  but  was  government  in  behalf  of  inter- 
ests opposing  theirs;  that  in  strike  times,  governmental  activities 
tend  to  break  strikes." 


348     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

In  other  words  each  ridiculous  attack  which  this  ultra 
radical  Communist  Manifesto  makes  on  each  force  of  law 
and  order  in  language  that  is  calculated  to  arouse  most  the 
prejudice  and  hostility  of  the  workers,  is,  in  argument  and 
phraseology,  almost  exactly  paralleled  in  the  Interchurch 
Report. 

This  further  point  is  to  be  noted.  The  term  "scab"  or 
"strike  breaker"  (meaning  the  same  things)  is  the  most 
arousing  and  damning  term,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
radical  workers,  that  can  be  used  against  any  individual 
or  group  of  individuals.  Foster's  Syndicalism  says  on 
page  14: 

"A  large  portion  of  the  syndicalists'  success  in  their  strikes  is  due  to 
their  energetic  treatment  of  the  strike  breaker.  .  .  .  He  becomes  so 
much  vermin  to  be  ruthlessly  exterminated." 

The  Communist  Manifesto,  it  will  be  noted,  only  calls 
certain  of  the  forces  of  law  and  order  by  this  ultimate 
epithet  "strike  breaker."  The  Interchurch  Report,  on  the 
other  hand  is  carefully  worded  to  call  each  separate  force 
of  law  and  order  by  this,  from  the  radical  point  of  view, 
worst  possible  epithet — "strike  breaker." 

Now  it  will  be  noted  that  in  its  argument  for  industrial 
(radical)  unionism,  in  its  attack  on  the  U.  S.  Department  of 
Justice  and  in  all  similar  attacks,  as  these  have  already 
been  emphasized  and  otherwise,  the  Interchurch  Report 
builds  up  an  elaborate  case  by  a  mixture  of  unsupported 
statements,  alleged  evidence,  insinuation,  etc.,  which  exactly 
parallels  standard  radical  propaganda,  and  then  states 
in  almost  standard  radical  phraseology  the  standard  radical 
conclusion — but  generally  qualifying  it  with  the  phrase 
"the  workers  believed,"  or  "this  made  the  workers  be- 
lieve," etc.  By  the  use  of  such  qualifying  phrases  the 
Interchurch  Report,  of  course,  technically  shifts  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  conclusions  to  which  its  whole  argument 
plainly  leads  and  with  which  it  obviously  agrees  from  its  own 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       349 

shoulders  to  that  of  the  workers,  thus  creating  a  loophole 
through  which  the  author  or  authors  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  may  attempt  to  escape  actual  responsibility  for  the 
logical  and  psychological  effects  of  their  whole  argument. 
But  the  very  method  by  which  it  seeks  to  do  this  is  standard 
radical  propaganda  practise. 

Mr.  Heber  Blankenhom,  together  with  Messrs.  William 
Z.  Foster,  Scott  Nearing,  Carl  Sandburg,  Representative  of 
the  Finnish  Red  government,  Paul  Hanna,  publicity  agent 
of  the  I.  W.  W,,  and  other  well-known  radicals  are  now 
openly  and  ofi&cially  working  as  correspondents  of  the 
Federated  Press  which  supplies  news  service  to  the  New 
York  Call,  The  New  Solidarity,  the  Chicago  News  Majority, 
the  Daily  Free  Russia,  the  Chicago  Socialist,  the  One  Big 
Union  Monthly  and  other  official  radical  publications. 

Mr.  Blankenhom's  other  and  previous  sub  rosa  radical 
activities  will  be  discussed  later  but  at  present  he  is  openly 
and  officially  engaged  in  writing  the  kind  of  feature  articles 
on  industrial  subjects  which  are  used  by  the  editors  of 
official  radical  publications  for  official  radical  propaganda 
or  as  the  basis  for  such  radical  propaganda.  Mr.  Blanken- 
hom is  also  engaged  in  agitation  propaganda  to  the  general 
public.  But  to  the  public  of  course  the  whole  effect  of  his 
radical  arguments  would  be  lost  if  they  were  openly  and 
admittedly  radical.  So  Mr.  Blankenhom  in  his  propaganda 
to  the  public  resorts  to  exactly  the  same  methods  used  in 
the  Interchurch  Report,  including  the  quahfication  of  the 
conclusions  which  he  carefully  builds  up  to,  by  the  same 
phrases,  "The  workers  believed,"  "this  made  the  workers 
believe,"  etc.,  etc. 

An  agitation  propaganda  article  of  this  sort  to  the  general 
public  and  signed  by  Mr.  Blankenhom  appeared  in  the 
September  14,  1921  issue  of  The  Nation.  This  article  is  in 
defense  of  the  union  miners  who  recently  marched  into  West 
Virginia  to  force  the  non-union  miners  to  unionize  at  the 
point  of  the  rifle  and  machine  gun.  By  quoting  somebody's 
comparison  of  this  attack  to  lohn  Brown's  rebellion  at 


350       ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Harper's  Ferry  and  then  reiterating  this  comparison  by 
clever  insinuation  and  sarcasm,  by  unsupported  accusations 
against  the  courts  and  the  state  constabulary,  by  accusing 
the  local  government  of  all  sorts  of  discrimination  against 
union  leaders  including  the  suppression  of  meetings,  in 
other  words,  by  precisely  the  same  type  of  argument  so  gener- 
ally employed  in  the  Interchurch  Report — this  whole  article 
which  seeks  to  justify  the  miners'  taking  the  law  into  their 
own  hands  ends  with  this  statement : 

"Thus  10,000  mountaineer  miners  have  come  to  believe  that  certain 
persons  have  been  taking  the  law  pretty  completely  into  their  own  hands. 
They  retaliate  in  kind.  It  is  hard  to  interest  them  in  senatorial  inves- 
tigations. They  may  come  to  believe  that  the  Federal  as  well  as  the  State 
Government  cloaks  operators  who  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands. 
Then  they  will  talk  even  more  of  John  Brown  and  Harper's  Ferry. " 

This  interesting  parallel  is  even  more  significant  in  view 
of  the  fact,  which  will  be  established  later,  that  Mr.  Blan- 
kenhorn  who  was  officially  secretary  of  the  Interchurch 
Commission  was  the  actual  author  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike. 

Such  remarkable  parallels  in  what  is  argued  for  and 
against,  in  the  arguments  used,  in  the  way  the  argument  is 
presented,  in  the  conclusions  and  particularly  in  the  very 
extraordinary  phraseology  Used,  between  the  Interchurch 
Report  and  the  arguments  of  Debs  and  other  well-known 
radicals,  and  of  various  official  communist  and  socialist 
propaganda  documents  is  so  striking,  so  point  by  point  even 
to  detail,  so  repeated  that  it  is  obviously  impossible  to  lay 
it  to  coincidence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  non-radical  simply 
does  not  know  and  could  not  use  such  technical  radical 
terms  and  phraseology — even  radical  slang — with  the  flu- 
ency and  subtle  effects  with  which  they  are  consistently 
used  in  many  parts  of  the  Interchurch  Report. 

Moreover  such  parallels  are  not  only  found  in  the  numer- 
ous instances  and  in  connection  with  the  subjects  already 
pointed  out  but  extend  to  the  subjects  of  methods  of  cost 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       351 

accounting,  of  labor  management,  of  bonuses  and  could 
be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely.  Certain  of  these  will  be 
touched  on  in  other  connections  later. 

There  is  however  one  other  particular  parallel  between 
this  sweeping  Interchurch  attack  on  the  forces  of  law  and 
order  and  standard  radical  propaganda  that  deserves 
special  attention. 

Anyone  who  is  familiar  with  the  history  of  radical  activi- 
ties and  points  of  view  or  with  radical  literature,  whether  in 
Europe  or  America,  knows  that  while  the  socialists  and  the 
followers  of  Proudhon  disagree  with  Bakounists  and  Syn- 
dicalists and  Bolshevists  as  to  whether  their  chief  enemy  is 
the  capitalist  or  merely  capitalism — that  while  the  same 
groups  differ  even  more  widely  as  to -whether  the  "bour- 
geoisie" or  middle  class  is  to  be  won  over  or  treated  with 
contempt  and  ignored,  the  one  group  in  all  organized  society 
against  which  all  radical  schools  in  all  countries  and  from 
Nechayeff  to  the  present  are  united  in  bitter  hatred  and 
implacable  enmity  is  the  police. 

In  1870  Bakounin  himself  in  one  of  his  most  vindictive 
diatribes  against  certain  of  his  enemies,  after  calling  them 
"doctrinaire,  insolent,  loathsome,  stupid,"  works  up  to  the 
climax  '' police  blood  flows  in  their  veins — they  should  be  called 
policemen  and  attorney  generals  in  embryo." 

Even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Stellmacker,  Austrian  radicals 
began  the  custom  of  holding  special  meetings  of  honor  for 
those  who  murdered  officers  of  the  police. 

One  of  the  earliest  meetings  of  French  radicals  was  held 
to  decide  what  conspicuous  public  building — whether  the 
Bank  of  France,  the  Palais  d'Elys^e  or  the  Ministry  of  the 
Int6rieur — should  be  blown  up  in  order  to  strike  most 
terror  to  the  government  and  the  people.  But  the  hatred 
against  the  police  was  so  strong  that  they  decided  on  the 
home  of  the  Prefect. 

The  first  great  radical  outrage  in  America  was  the  throw- 
ing of  dynamite  bombs  among  a  crowd  of  police  officers  in 
Haymarket  Square,  Chicago. 


352     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Johann  Most's  statement,  "Murder  is  the  killing  of  a 
human  being  and  I  have  never  heard  that  a  policeman  was  a 
human  being"  has  become  a  radical  proverb. 

That  the  radical  individuals  and  schools  which  openly 
preach  and  seek  to  practise  violence  should  have  this  inher- 
ent hatred  of  all  police  powers  seems  perhaps  natural  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact  the  very  radicals  which  have  been  the  loud- 
est in  publicly  disclaiming  the  use  of  violence  seem  to  be 
often  most  bitter  and  vituperative  in  their  attacks  on  all 
police  agencies. 

Even  so  mild  a  socialist  as  Mr.  Robert  Hunter  in  his 
book  Violence  and  the  Labor  Movement,  dedicated  to 
Eugene  V.  Debs,  and  which  is  written  to  express  the  author's 
personal  disbelief  in  the  efficacy  of  violence,  devotes  his 
longest  and  next  to  the  last  chapter  to  a  most  bitter  and 
sweeping  denunciation  of  the  police. 

Mr.  Hunter,  though  writing  in  191 6,  goes  back  to  1869 
in  American  labor  history  and  to  1832  in  European  and 
combs  the  field  for  alleged  police  atrocities.  The  latest 
police  "atrocities"  he  actually  attempts  to  allege  were  in 
connection  with  strikes  of  1886  to  1892,  a  period  during 
which  nation-wide  anarchistic  bomb  outrages  led  to  certain, 
not  always  mild,  police  counter  activity,  which  has  long 
since  however  died  down  or  been  stopped  by  public  opinion. 
Yet  Mr.  Hunter  not  only  wrote  in  191 6  as  though  these  were 
current  police  practise  but  in  his  anti-police  frenzy  he 
entirely  changes  the  comparatively  restrained  style  of  his 
other  chapters  and  launches  into  a  most  unrestrained,  sweep- 
ing and  often  self -contradictory  charge  of  "police  brutality" 
which  can  only  be  compared  with  the  Interchurch  charges 
of  "men  and  women  murdered,"  "hundreds  wounded," 
"hundreds  clubbed"  based  on  affidavits  or  statements 
about  "drunk  or  crazy"  police  firing  volley  after  volley 
into  fleeing  crowds,  "riding  down  women  and  children," 
"clubbing  peaceful  worshippers  leaving  church,"  which 
"affidavits"  and  "statements"  are  on  their  face  largely 
mere  exclamations  or  descriptions  and  not  statements  at 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       353 

all  and  which  under  oath  and  cross-examination  were  publicly 
repudiated  by  their  own  authors. 

Again  "The  Socialist  Party  Platform"  1920  says: 

"Industrial" 
"i.     Congress  should  enact  effective  laws  ...  to  abolish  detective 
and  strike-breaking  agencies"  .  .  . 

and  all  radical  groups  argue,  in  season  and  out,  against 
"detectives"  or  "spies"  or  "under-cover  men,"  beginning 
with  "strike-breaking  detective  agencies,"  against  which 
certain  arguments  can  be  reasonably  advanced,  but  always 
carrying  this  argument  on  to  an  insistence  that  all  "detective 
activities"  should  be  abolished.  The  motive  of  such  argu- 
ments in  such  cases  is  of  course  apparent. 

There  is  little  question  that  the  very  idea  of  the  use  of 
detectives  or  "spies"  to  get  information  by  misrepresenta- 
tion or  deceit  is  distasteful  to  the  average  person.  No  right 
minded  person  approves  the  use  of  such  means  except  where 
necessary  or  will  fail  to  condemn  the  misuse  of  such  agencies. 

Unfortunately,  however,  as  long  as  criminal  cupidity  and 
passion  threaten  life  and  property;  or  criminal  fanaticism 
plots  Haymarket  or  Wall  Street  bomb  outrages ;  or  equally 
criminal  but  more  cowardly  fanaticism  furnishes  the  propa- 
ganda or  "justification"  which  incites  the  more  ignorant  or 
daring  of  their  fellows  to  thus  take  the  law  into  their  own 
hands,  detective  activity  is  at  least  a  necessary  evil. 

That  the  Interchurch  Report  continually  attacks  "under- 
cover men"  and  "spy"  activities  from  those  of  the  "Federal 
Department  of  Justice"  down,  has  already  been  emphasized. 
It  builds  its  attack  on  the  fact  that  one  "Sherman  Agency" 
representative  was  indicted — but  not  convicted — of  "con- 
spiracies of  riot,  insurrection  and  murder."  It  tries  by  in- 
sinuation to  tie  this  case  up  with  the  steel  strike  but  does 
not  directly  allege  any  such  connection. 

Beyond  this  one  incident  the  Interchurch  Report  builds 
its  case  against  "under-cover  men"  almost  entirely  on  in- 
formation which  it  specifically  states  was  freely  given  it  by 


354     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  steel  companies  themselves.  This  evidence  so  fails  to 
prove  anything  in  connection  with  the  steel  strike  that  the 
Interchurch  Report  itself  admits  in  connection  with  it 
(Volume  II,  page  4) : 

"  It  is  impossible  then  to  criticize  the  present  Report  on  under-cover 
men  in  the  steel  strike  as  'an  exceptional  instance';  instead  it  is  a 
tjrpical  spadeful  out  of  the  subsoil  of  'business  enterprise.'  " 

Yet  through  page  after  page  to  a  total  of  over  100  pages 
it  mulls  this  evidence  over,  weaving  it  through  with  insinua- 
tions and  otherwise  trying  chiefly  through  mere  volume  of 
words  to  make  plausible  the  conclusion  which  anyone 
familiar  with  this  type  of  argument  knows  is  coming; 
namely,  that  all  detective  activities  should  be  abolished. 
This  conclusion  in  this  case  is  featured  as  the  climax  of  the 
Introduction  in  the  second  volume  and  it  is  frankly  signed 
by  Mr.  Heber  Blankenhorn's  initials.    It  says : 

"  The  questioning  sweeps  wider.     Must  our  social  organization,  our 

civilization,  be  shot  through  with  spies?  .  .  .   Can  we  live  without 

spies?  The  question  is  raised  by  the  facts:  hence  the  importance  of  this 

study. 

H.  B." 

FOURTH.  It  is  generally  possible  of  course  for  the  radicals 
to  keep  secret  or  cover  up  many  of  their  unlawful  conspiracies 
and  acts.  Agitation  and  propaganda  however,  which  are  neces- 
sary to  influence  and  organize  its  followers  cannot  be  hid.  All 
radicals  therefore,  insist  that  the  "right  of  free  speech"  be  made 
absolute  under  all  circumstances.  They  demand  continually 
and  loudly  that  neither  the  courts  or  police  or  local  officials  or 
local  public  opinion  as  a  whole  shall  be  permitted  to  prevent 
their  saying  or  writing  anything  they  please. 

"The  Socialist  Party  Platform,"  1920  says: 

"Political" 

"  I .  The  constitutional  freedom  of  speech,  press  and  assembly  should 
be  restored."  .  .  . 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       355 

The  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Report  makes  a  major 
argument  out  of  this  subject  of  "free  speech"  and  that  its 
argument  and  conclusions  in  regard  to  "free  speech,"  the 
"right  of  assemblage"  and  so-called  "Civil  liberties"  are 
built  up  by  hiding  the  true  facts  as  to  violence  and  threat  of 
violence  and  by  resorting  to  either  the  deception  or  the 
quibble  that  there  was  no  violence  merely  because  there  was 
no  violence  at  strikers'  meetings  has  already  been  em- 
phasized. A  careful  comparison  between  the  Interchurch 
arguments  on  this  much  radically  agitated  subject  and  the 
arguments  that  are  advanced  by  official  radical  propaganda 
on  the  subject,  is  correspondingly  interesting. 

Mr.  Roger  Baldwin  was,  at  the  time  of  the  preparation 
of  the  Interchurch  Report,  the  conspicuous  radical  head  of 
a  radical  organization  known  as  the  National  Civil  Liberties 
Bureau,  devoted  during  the  war  to  propaganda  against 
preparedness  and  the  draft — for  attempting  to  carry  out 
whose  theories  Mr.  Baldwin  served  a  year  in  prison — and 
known  since  the  war  as  the  "American  Civil  Liberties 
Union"  of  which  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  is  a  director  and 
whose  theories  and  activities  Mr.  Baldwin  has  himself 
described  as  follows:  (New  York  Legislative  Investigation 
of  Radicalism,  page  1979,  and  succeeding  pages). 

"The  American  Civil  Liberties  Union  was  organized  on  January  la, 
1920,  being  a  reorganization  of  the  National  Civil  Liberties' Btxreau  .  .  • 
a  change  in  name  to  indicate  that  the  character  of  the  organization  had 
changed  from  a  bureau  of  legal  service  to  a  propaganda  organization. 
.  .  .  Expression  of  opinion,  as  we  define  it,  includes  any  language 
unaccompanied  by  any  overt  act —  .  .  .  language  tmaccompanied  by 
such  an  act  even  if  the  logical  consequences  of  it  lead  others  to  the  com- 
mission of  the  act,  is  legitimately  within  oxu-  conception  of  free  speech. 
For  instance  the  advocacy  of  murder,  unaccompanied  by  any  act,  is  within 
the  legitimate  scope  of  free  speech.  .  .  .  The  view  I  have  set  forth,  how- 
ever, is  I  believe  the  view  of  those  who  believe  in  free  speech,  without 
reservations,  as  do  the  great  majority  of  our  Committee.  ...  I  would 
say  on  behalf  of  the  entire  committee  that  all  of  them  disbelieve  the  legal 
theory  of  constructive  intent,  and  that  all  of  them  believe  in  the  right  of 
persons  to  advocate  '  the  overthrow  of  government  by  force  and  violence, ' 
while  all  the  members  of  the  Committee  totally  disbelieve  in  any  such 


356     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

doctrine  themselves.  .  .  .  Because  of  the  nature  of  the  attacks  on  the 
assumed  rights  of  individuals  and  organizations,  the  work  is  organized 
chiefly  in  cooperation  with  labor  unions  and  radical  political  groups."  • 

In  connection  with  the  war  activities  of  this  organization 
and  particularly  in  the  organization  of  the  "  Peoples'  Coun- 
cil" which  was  "to  imitate  in  this  country  the  Working- 
men's  and  Soldiers'  Councils  of  Russia,"  Mr.  Baldwin  wrote 
Mr.  Louis  D.  Lochner: 

"We  want  to  also  look  like  patriots  in  everything  we  do.  We  want 
to  get  a  lot  of  good  flags,  talk  a  good  deal  about  the  Constitution, "  etc. 

Perhaps  no  better  example  need  be  cited  of  a  point  already 
emphasized — that  in  regard  to  the  "undercover"  nature  of 
radical  activities,  and  the  difference  between  the  individual's 
protestations  about  what  he  believes  and  the  actual  effect  of 
his  acts.  Mr.  Baldwin  states  that  he  personally  doesn't 
believe  in  "the  overthrow  of  the  government  by  force  and 
violence"  nevertheless  he  is  directing  his  whole  activities 
"chiefly  in  cooperation  with  labor  unions  and  radical  political 
groups"  in  trying  to  obtain  for  these  radical  political  groups 
the  right  to  "advocate  the  overthrow  of  the  government  by 
force  and  violence"  and  he  specifically  includes  in  this  the 
right  to  "advocate  murder,"  posing  all  the  time  "like 
patriots  in  everything  we  do  "  with  a  "  lot  of  good  flags  "  and 
"talk  about  the  Constitution"  and  "our  forefathers." 

The  officially  signed  propaganda  pamphlets  of  Mr. 
Baldwin's  and  Mr.  Foster's  organization  state: 

"The  hysteria  aroused  by  the  war  ...  is  now  directed  against  the 
advocates  of  industrial  freedom  ...  in  the  passage  of  laws  against 
'criminal  syndicalism,'  'criminal  anarchy'  and  'sedition.'  .  .  . 

"We  are  attempting  to  meet  the  present  crisis — 

"(i)  By  sending  free  speech  organizers  and  speakers  into  areas  of 
conflict  to  dramatize  the  issue  of  civil  liberty  .  .  .  (and)  ...  by 
securing  nation-wide  publicity  on  all  important  civil  liberty  issues." 

The  Interchurch  Report  devotes  many  passages  through- 
out and  a  large  part  of  Chapter  VII  in  thus  "dramatizing 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       357 

and  securing  nation-wide  publicity"  for  precisely  the  same 
so-called  "issues  of  Civil  Liberty"  which  Mr.  Baldwin  and 
his  "Liberties  Union"  specifically  emphasize  and  advocate; 
and  the  supplementary  Interchurch  Report,  Volume  II, 
spends  60  pages,  signed  by  Mr.  George  Soule,  quotations 
from  whose  other  published  works  appear  herein,  which 
he  devotes  to  arguing  why  the  rights  of  local  self-govern- 
ment should  be  taken  away  from  the  people  of  Western 
Pennsylvania,  basing  his  arguments  on  a  series  of  41 
affidavits  which  are  at  least  more  "dramatic"  than  they  are 
anything  else. 

Mr.  Baldwin's  organization  in  its  official  pamphlets  speci- 
fically names  and  condemns  certain  social  forces  as  being  thus 
"directed  against  the  advocates  of  industrial  freedom"  and 
as  seeking  to  infringe  the  "Civil  liberties"  of  those  who  are 
standing  upon  their  "American  rights  of  free  speech"  in 
preaching  "Syndicalism,  Anarchy  and  sedition."  These 
social  forces  are  according  to  Mr.  Baldwin  "patrioteering 
societies,"  "vigilantes,"  "citizens'  committees,"  "strike 
breaking  state  constabularies,"  "the  hired  gun-men  of  private 
corporations,"  "the  Attorney  General  (Palmer)' '  and  "zeal- 
ous local  prosecutors"  .  .  ."  by  whom  meetings  are  prohibit- 
ed or  broken  up"  and  "  speakers  are  mobbed  and  prosecuted." 

It  has  already  been  emphasized  in  specific  detail  how  each 
one  of  these  same  "social  forces"  which  are  thus  accused  by 
Mr.  Baldwin  of  "infringing  the  civil  liberties"  of  those 
preaching  "industrial  freedom,"  "anarchy"  and  "syndical- 
ism," are  also  specifically  named  and  accused  by  the  Inter- 
church Report  of  ' '  infringing  civil  liberties, ' '  These  include 
"bands  of  citizens,"  "  Loyal  American  Leaguers"  (doubtless 
"Patrioteers"),  the  officials  of  Gary  accused  of  stopping 
strikers'  meetings  and  parades  merely  because  they  resulted 
in  pulling  negroes  off  street  cars  and  * '  injuring  them  slightly' ' 
— the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  who  becomes 
second  only  to  Judge  Gary  as  the  "b^te  noire"  of  the  Inter- 
church Report  because  of  his  "infringing  of  Civil  Liberties," 
and  a  blanket  accusation  brought  (page  235)  against 


358     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"local  legislative  bodies,  police  authorities,  judges,  state  police  troops, 
Federal  government  departments,  and  the  United  States  Army"  as 
having  "affected  civil  liberties  in  whole  communities." 

Returning  to  Mr.  Baldwin's  official  Civil  Liberties  Pamph- 
let the  following  then  appears: — 

"Free  Speech — 

"There  should  be  no  prosecutions  for  the  mere  expression  of  opinion 
on  matters  of  public  concern,  however  radical,  however  violent.  .  .  . 

"No  discretion  should  be  given  to  police  to  prohibit  parades  or  proces- 
sions,"— and  that  such  parades  should  be  allowed  to  display  red  flags  or 
other  political  emblems. 

Except  for  the  fact  that  it  does  not  mention  "red  flags" 
this  is  specifically  the  argument — as  already  shown  in 
detail — which  the  Interchurch  spends  its  whole  "Free 
Speech"  section  in  both  voltunes  in  "dramatizing"  and 
giving  "nation-wide  publicity." 

In  connection  with  a  consideration  of  the  arguments  and 
conclusions  of  the  Interchurch  Report  and  the  vociferous 
present  campaign  of  the  "American  Civil  Liberties  Union 
and  of  all  radicals  to  be  allowed  the  unlimited  "right  of  free 
speech"  in  order  to  be  unhindered  in  carrying  on  their 
radical  propaganda,  there  is  another  fact  that  deserves 
note. 

The  New  York  state  legislative  investigation  of  radical- 
ism, on  page  1991,  describes  the  organization  by  Mr.  Louis 
B.  Lochner,  Scott  Nearing,  Roger  Baldwin  and  other  well- 
known  radicals  of : 

"An  International  labor  news  service,  which  has  for  its  purpose  the 
spreading  of  news  relating  to  the  revolutionary  progress  in  foreign  coun- 
tries and  in  general  of  a  propaganda  nature." 

In  December,  191 9,  in  the  midst  of  the  steel  strike,  this 
organization  reorganized,  changed  its  name  to  the  Feder- 
ated Press  and  added  to  the  list  of  its  officers  and  corre- 
spondents a  large  number  of  additional  notorious  radicals. 
Its  own  published  list  of  those  so  officially  connected  with 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       359 

the  Federated   Press  includes  the  name   of    Mr.    Heber 
Blankenhom,  and  later  that  of  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster. 

On  page  243  of  the  Interchurch  Report  appears  a  very- 
significant  little  advertisement  of  this  radical  propaganda 
organization,  as  follows : 

"...  workers  in  many  sections  of  the  nation,  in  steel  towns  and 
out,  redoubled  efforts  to  set  up  their  own  press  and  inaugurated  their 
own  federated  news  service." 

And  again  in  Volume  II,  page  89: 

"Immediately  after  the  steel  and  coal  strikes  there  was  quickly  es- 
tablished the  first  national  news  service  owned  by  the  labor  union?,  the 
Federated  Press." 

In  other  words  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  man  who  wrote 
the  Interchurch  Report  has  since  been  openly  working  for  an 
off-shoot  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union,  which  the 
Interchurch  Report  thus  advertises  adds  to  the  significance 
of  this  parallel  between  the  argtmient  as  to  "free  speech" 
which  the  Civil  Liberties  Union  seeks  to  "dramatize"  and 
the  argument  which  the  Interchurch  Report  goes  to  such 
lengths  to  "dramatize. " 

FIFTH :  in  addition  to  the  organization  of  the  workers  into 
industrial  unions  under  single  control  as  a  means  of  controlling 
and  owning  the  industry,  for  which  purpose  all  radicals  de- 
mand the  unlimited  right  of  free  speech,  all  radicals  seek  to 
facilitate  and  hasten  the  ownership  and  control  of  their  industry 
by  themselves,  through  the  use  of  every  possible  device  which  will 
make  the  ownership  and  control  of  the  industry  unprofitable  or 
otherwise  undesirable  to  present  ownership  and  management. 
The  means  to  this  end  which  radicalism  most  emphasizes  are 
those  of  forcing  up  wages  so  disproportionately  to  production 
that  the  business  cannot  be  run  at  a  profit  and  therefore  cannot 
maintain  or  obtain  sufficient  operating  capital  to  continue. 

All  leaders  of  labor  and  all  labor,  including  the  most 
conservative,  are  of  course  always  interested  in  increasing 
wages  and  are  in  general  making  a  constant  effort  in  this 


36o     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

direction.  Many  non-radical  labor  leaders  are  also  seeking 
blindly  to  limit  production  per  worker  on  the  theory  that 
more  workers  will  thus  be  employed.  Such  interests  and. 
efforts  in  regard  to  wages  and  production  however,  are 
essentially  different  from  the  expressed  interest  and  effort 
of  radicalism  which  is  to  increase  wages  and  lower  produc- 
tion, not  primarily  for  the  sake  of  the  immediate  benefit  to 
the  worker,  but  primarily  for  the  harm  to  the  industry. 

In  the  "Revolutionary  I.  W.  W."  Grover  W.  Perry 
says: 

"  The  preamble  of  the  I.  W.  W.  constitution  says  in  part,  'By  organiz- 
ing industrially,  we  are  forming  the  structure  of  the  new  society  within 
the  shell  of  the  old'  .  .  .  we  will  demand  more  and  more  wages  from  our 
employers.  Wewilldemandandenforceshorter  and  shorter  hours.  As  we 
gain  these  demands  we  are  diminishing  the  profits  of  the  bosses.  We  are 
taking  away  his  power.     We  are  gaining  that  power  for  ourselves." 

Mr.  George  Soule  (joint-author,  Vol.  II,  Interchurch 
Report  and  member  staff  of  field  investigators)  in  his  book 
"The  New  (revolutionary)  Unionism"  on  page  274  says: 

"...  real  wages  can  rise  only  by  diverting  a  larger  share  of  the 
earnings  to  the  workers;  but  under  the  present  economic  regime,  this 
process  cannot  go  beyond  a  certain  point  without  driving  the  employers 
out  of  business  by  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  secure  further 
capital," 

and  again  on  page  172 — 

"...  business  consideration  is  to  the  new  unionist  only  secondary 
.  .  .  immediate  gains  (higher  wages  and  shorter  hours)  are,  both  to  the 
members  and  the  leaders,  a  by-product  derived  in  process  of  work  on 
the  main  task — the  preparation  of  the  workers  for  actual  control  of 
production." 

One  of  the  most  surprising  and  mystifying  sections  of  the 
Interchurch  Report,  on  first  analysis,  is  the  lengthy  and 
elaborate  arguments  in  regard  to  steel  wages. 

The  hourly  steel  wage  rate  and  weekly  wage  rates  were 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       361 

not  only  widely  known  but  are  published,  as  taken  from 
government  statistics,  in  the  Interchurch  Report's  own 
appendix.  At  the  time  of,  and  for  years  before  the  strike, 
not  only  every  opportunity  but  every  inducement  was  given 
the  steel  workers  to  work  full  time  and  more  than  full  time. 
All  these  official  government  figures  and  figures  compiled 
by  all  other  authorities  showed  plainly  that  all  steel  workers 
received  class  by  class  the  highest  wages  in  American  in- 
dustry. Even  the  president  of  the  strikers'  committee 
admitted  that  "of  course  the  steel  companies  came  up  with 
the  wages."  Yet  the  Interchurch  Report  entirely  fails  to 
mention  or  consider  all  these  plain,  incontrovertible  facts 
and  spends  page  after  page  in  arguing  through  false  analogy, 
through  leaving  out  of  consideration  important  facts  of  the 
commonest  knowledge,  and  through  statistics  that  are 
manipulated  and  falsified,  to  the  ridiculous  conclusion  that 
steel  wages  were  not  sufficient  for  a  "minimum  subsistence" 
and  that  they  are  "the  lowest  for  all  trades  for  which  there 
are  separate  statistics  for  common  labor, "  etc. 

Only  in  the  light  of  radicalism's  expressed  policy  of  con- 
stantly agitating  for  "more  and  more  wages,"  irrespective  of 
any  possible  justice  in  their  demands  as  a  deliberate  attack 
on  the  financial  solvency  of  the  industry  involved,  is  this 
whole  wage  argument  even  rational. 

Again,  one  of  the  most  obvious  and  widely  criticized  mis- 
leading statements  in  the  Interchurch  Report  is  that  in  re- 
gard to  surpluses.  A  reasonable  surplus,  to  be  used  as  liq- 
uid capital  and  to  stabilize  business  operations  and  wages 
in  times  of  depression,  is  regarded  by  business  men  in  general , 
by  economists,  and  by  all  intelligent  leaders  of  labor,  not 
only  as  highly  desirable,  but  the  friends  of  labor  in  recent 
years  have  argued  that  it  is  morally  incumbent  on  business 
to  build  up  such  surpluses  as  opportunity  offers  to  protect 
the  public  and  the  workers  from  the  necessity  of  too  sudden 
readjustments  in  times  of  business  depression. 

In  18  years,  the  Steel  Corporation  had  built  up  a  surplus 
equal  to  about  20%  of  its  assets,  or  at  the  rate  of  slightly 


362     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

over  I  %  a  year.  This  surplus  savings  per  year  represented 
about  2%  of  total  business  per  year.  These  figures  show  the 
entire  reasonableness  both  of  the  size  and  of  the  rate  of  ac- 
cumulation of  this  surplus.  Moreover  in  times  of  past  de- 
pression, when  wages  throughout  the  country  were  being 
reduced  the  Steel  Corporation  although  it  cut  its  dividends 
used  this  surplus  to  maintain  wages  and  employment. 

Yet  without  in  any  way  even  suggesting  any  of  these  facts, 
the  Interchurch  Report  attempts,  by  utterly  misleading 
language,  to  create  the  entirely  false  impression  already 
described  in  detail  in  regard  to  this  surplus,  and  to  argue  by 
insinuation  that  this  surplus  was  illegitimately  accumulated 
at  the  expense  of  the  workers  and  ought  to  be  wiped  out  by 
being  turned  over  to  the  workers. 

The  whole  effect  of  the  Interchurch  argument  on  this 
point  is  to  prejudice  the  workers  and  the  public,  by  mis- 
representation, against  a  highly  desirable  policy  of  sound 
financing  which,  if  it  could  be  broken  down,  would,  to  just 
that  extent,  result  in  the  accomplishment  of  radicalism's 
express  purpose,  of  undermining  the  solvency  of  the 
industry. 

In  this  connection  it  is  to  be  especially  noted  that  on  page 
177  the  Interchurch  Report,  in  its  discussion  of  the  causes 
of  the  failure  of  the  steel  strike,  lists  second:  ''It  (the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corp.)  had  too  large  a  cash  surplus."  Ergo,  if  this 
surplus  could  in  some  way  be  broken  down  it  wotild  be  just 
that  much  easier  to  win  "the  next  strike." 

Again,  on  page  77,  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  a 
lengthy  argument  from  a  W.  N.  Polakov  to  the  effect  that 
when  steel  demand  is  below  normal,  steel  prices  should  not 
include  overhead  on  entire  equipment — which  of  course  the 
company  has  to  pay — but  only  on  that  part  of  the  equip- 
ment actually  used  in  the  sub-normal  production.  Again, 
if  such  a  theory  should  be  accepted  by  the  public  and  govern- 
ment agencies,  and  enforced  it  would  be  most  effective — to 
quote  Mr.  Soule — "in  driving  the  employers  out  of  business 
by  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  secure  further  capital." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       363 

SIXTH  :  With  the  same  object  of  making  industry  unprofit- 
able to  its  present  owners,  radicalism  admittedly  openly  practises 
and  encourages  sabotage. 

"Sabotage,"  says  Mr.  Robert  Hunter  in  his  book  which 
is  entitled,  "Violence  and  the  Labor  Movement,"  (page 
236)  is: 

"  If  a  strike  is  lost  and  the  workers  return  only  to  break  the  machines, 
spoil  the  products,  and  generally  disorganize  a  factory,  they  are  Sabo- 
teurs. The  idea  of  Sabotage  is  that  any  dissatisfied  workman  shall 
undertake  to  break  the  machine  in  order  to  render  the  conduct  of  the 
industry  unprofitable,  if  not  actually  impossible." 

Sabotage,  however,  does  not  necessarily  consist  of  violence, 
and  the  fact  that  public  opinion  and  the  enforcement  of  the 
laws  have  become  much  more  strict  against  property  wreck- 
ing through  mere  spite  or  grievance,  has  resulted  in  the 
development  and  propagation,  by  radicalism,  of  another 
type  of  sabotage,  less  sensational,  but  in  the  long  run  even 
more  effective.  At  the  Indianapolis  convention  of  the 
Socialist  Party  Delegate  Slaydon  said: 

"  Sabotage  as  it  prevails  today  means  interfering  with  the  machinery 
of  production  without  going  on  strike.  It  means  to  strike  but  stay  on 
the  payroll.  It  means  that  instead  of  leaving  the  machine,  the  workers 
will  stay  at  the  machine  and  tturn  out  poor  work,  slow  down  their  work, 
and  in  every  other  way  that  may  be  practicable,  interfere  with  the  pro- 
fits of  the  boss." 

Sabotage  generally  constituting  a  crime,  is  of  course,  not 
openly  preached.  Moreover  while  it  has  always  been  se- 
cretly advocated  and  more  or  less  indulged  in  by  many 
radicals,  the  American  Socialist  Party,  during  the  period  in 
which  it  was  trying  to  gain  influence  by  legitimate,  political 
means,  and  in  order  to  free  itself  from  the  stigma  of  its 
past  reputation,  added  in  1912  Article  II,  Section  6  to  its 
constitution  which  specifically  prohibited  sabotage. 

In  recent  years,  however,  when  all  radicals  have  given  up 
their  attempt  of  seeking  their  aims  through  legitimate, 


364    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

majority  political  action  and  have  concentrated  their  efforts 
on  enforcing  their  aims  through  getting  control  of  industry, 
the  theory  and  practice  of  sabotage  has  become  a  leading 
part  of  their  policy.  As  part  of  this  general  movement,  the 
Socialist  Party  in  its  National  Convention  in  191 7  just 
after  America  entered  the  war  officially  revoked  their 
constitutional  edict  against  sabotage. 

There  is  no  question  that  as  a  part  of  its  effort  to  make 
industry  unprofitable  to  its  present  owners  and  managers, 
radicalism  is  today  encouraging,  and  the  members  of  radical 
unions  are  practising  at  least  the  minor  forms  of  sabotage 
with  the  express  aim  of  handicapping  and  slowing  up  produc- 
tion on  a  more  widespread  and  thorough  scale  than  ever 
before.  * 

The  Interchurch  Report,  in  many  sections,  condemns  the 
alleged  * '  speeding-up ' '  of  workers.  The  burden  of  its  whole 
argument  on  the  subject  to  workers  and  the  public  is  that 
the  workers  should  do  less  work.  It  frequently  efers  by 
way  of  condemnation  to  the  "organization  of  the  jobs  for 
production"  or  the  "running  of  the  job  for  production" 
(pages  I2Q-I2I,  etc.) — that  "the  steel  industry  (is)  being 
run  for  the  making  of  profits  "  (page  77). * 

The  Interchurch  Report,  however,  does  not  directly  or 
indirectly  touch  on  or  advance  any  argument  that  could  be 
interpreted  to  specifically  encourage  or  point  toward  sabo- 
tage as  such. 

Moreover  the  Report  in  its  "Findings,"  published  at  the 

'  It  is  only  fair  to  state  in  this  connection  that  the  Amalgamated 
Clothing  Workers,  previously  mentioned  herein  as  a  leading  exponent 
of  radical  imionism,  two  years  ago  partly  abandoned  and  have  seemingly 
in  the  last  year  entirely  abandoned  previous  practices  which  resulted 
in  large  decreases  in  production,  and  are  maintaining  production  at  an 
agreed  rate.  Whether  this  is  merely  being  done  as  a  matter  of  present 
expediency,  along  the  lines  of  the  recent  Russian  Soviet  compromise 
with  its  principles  to  gain  certain  immediate  ends,  or  represents  a  basic 
change  of  principles  can  doubtless  only  be  determined  by  time. 

'  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  also  to  note  that  the  "Report  of 
the  Findings  Committee"  of  the  Interchurch  Industrial  Relations 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       365 

end  of  the  Report  but  written  by  a  different  group  of  men  at 
a  different  time  and  in  general  only  slightly  related  to  the 
Report  itself,  does  specifically  condemn  labor's  theory  of 
slowing-up  production  and  specifically  demands  that  labor 
unions  change  their  methods  to  encourage  production  on  the 
part  of  the  individual  workers. 

SEVENTH :  In  order  to  give  its  workers  free  scope  in  prac- 
tising sabotage  and  carrying  out  other  practices  to  the  detriment  of 
their  industry  and  also  as  a  means  of  getting  the  control  of  their 
industry  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  the  workers  whom  it 
controls,  radicalism  continually  insists  on  the  adoption  of  every 
type  of  device  which  will  take  the  right  of  disciplining  or  con- 
trolling the  workers  out  of  the  employers'  hand  even  to  the  extent 
of  openly  denying  the  employer  the  right  to  hire  or  discharge  the 
workers. 

The  Interchurch  Report  constantly  urges  as  a  major 
grievance  that  "control  of  working  conditions"  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  employer — that  "promotion  was  at  pleasure  of 
company  representatives"  and  otherwise  continually  argues 
to  the  workers  and  the  public  that  the  present  power  of  con- 
trolling and  disciplining  the  workers  should  be  taken  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  employers  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
workers  and  their  representatives. 

It  never  suggests,  however,  directly  or  indirectly  that 
"control  of  the  job"  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  man- 
agement and  put  into  the  hands  of  the  workers  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  the  workers  special  power  or  protection  to 
facilitate  any  form  of  sabotage. 

Moreover  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  whole  influ- 


Department  as  published  by  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  Docu- 
ment "No.  187,  II.  10,  Nov.,  1919,"  states: — 

"  III.       The  present  industrial  system  is  on  trial." 
"  VIII.    Increasing  uumbers  of  intelligent  and  conscientious  people 
believe  that  the  conflict  between  the  principles  of  Jesus 
and  an  industrial  system  based   upon   competition  for 
private  profit  is  sharply  drawn." 


366     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ence  of  organized  labor,  including  that  part  of  it  which  is 
not  radical,  has  for  various  reasons  sought  to  get  nauch  of 
the  power  to  control  and  discipline  the  workers  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  employer,  not  at  all  to  encourage  sabotage  or 
further  any  other  radical  aim,  but  merely  to  increase  its  own 
power  as  compared  with  that  of  the  employer.  Therefore 
the  constant  insistence  of  the  Interchurch  Report  that  the 
power  to  control  and  discipline  the  workers  be  taken  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  employer  does  not  necessarily  have  any 
relation  to  radicalism.  Moreover  there  is  the  definite  fact 
that  the  Interchurch  Report  in  its  "Findings"  specifically 
condemns  the  practice  on  the  part  of  workers  of  deliberately 
slowing-up  production. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  overlooked  that  one  of 
the  chief  reasons  why  it  has  been  so  easy  for  radical  "borers 
from  within"  organized  labor  to  get  such  a  hold  on  organized 
labor  that  Foster  definitely  states,  and  many  authorities  and 
facts  bear  him  out.  that  radicalism  has  a  dominant  hold  on 
the  A.  F.  of  L.,  is  because  radicalism  has  seized  on  many 
such  practices  which,  while  not  established  for  radical  ends, 
are  so  susceptible  of  being  radically  used,  that  radicalism 
has  been  able  to  turn  them  most  effectively  to  its  own  ends. 

Whether,  therefore,  the  authors  of  the  main  section  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  were  actuated  by  the  same  motives  as 
the  different  authors  of  the  "Findings"  which  definitely  con- 
demn sabotage  or  were  actuated  by  different  motives,  the 
fact  remains  that  in  their  insistent  advocacy  of  taking 
"promotion"  and  "control  of  the  job"  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  responsible  management,  they  are  advocating  a  system 
which  has  almost  invariably  resulted  in  the  minor  forms  of 
sabotage  and  which,  once  established,  radicalism  is  able  to 
use  as  a  major  weapon  in  its  attacks  on  industry.  ^ 

'  As  has  already  been  stated,  radicals  in  general  have  long  been,  and 
have  been  particularly  in  the  last  number  of  years,  advocates  of  sabo- 
tage, which  advocacy  has  been  strong  enough  and  general  enough  to 
force  the  whole  Socialist  Party  recently  to  officially  revoke  its  dis- 
approval of  sabotage. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       367 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  except  for  Section  V  of  the  separate 
''Findings"  which  chiefly  condemns  organized  labor's 
tendency  to  deliberately  decrease  production,  and  for  cer- 
tain isolated  recommendations  as  to  government  regulation 
of  the  steel  industry,  such  careful  study  of  the  entire  Inter- 
church  Report  as  the  present  analysis  has  been  able  to  make 
not  only  does  not  reveal  one  single  argument  or  conclusion, 
directly  or  indirectly  incompatible  with  the  principles  of 
radicalism,  but  it  has  not  found  one  single  argument  or  con- 
clusion which  is  not  in  entire  keeping  with  the  principles 
and  practices  of  radicalism,  and  entirely  susceptible,  of  being 
quoted  and  used  in  favor  of  radicalism. 

Throughout,  the  Interchurch  Report  constitutes  a 
violent  attack  on  the  steel  industry  which  is  perhaps  the 
only  great  basic  industry  on  which  modem  organized  labor 
theories,  including  radical  theories,  have  gained  no  hold; 
and  it  goes  to  the  greatest  lengths  in  disregarding  important 
evidence,  expurgating  and  twisting  evidence,  and  manipulat- 


But  in  the  meantime  the  whole  world  has  witnessed  the  conspicuous 
inability,  first  of  the  Russian  worker  to  operate  the  factories  which  he 
had  taken  possession  of,  and  then  of  the  Italian  worker  to  operate  the 
factories  which  he  temporarily  seized  but  was  soon  very  glad  to  give  back 
to  capitalist  management.  As  a  result,  very  recently  certain  members 
of  the  so-called  "intelligenza"  among  radicals  have  begun  to  talk 
a  great  deal  about  a  theory  which  they  call  "the  assumption  of  responsi- 
bility for  production"  by  the  workers.  The  way  they  interpret  this 
newly  discovered  theory  to  the  workers  is  that  the  workers  must  begin  at 
once  to  educate  themselves  on  industrial  subjects  as  a  preparation  for  the 
seizure  and  operation  by  them  of  industry.  To  the  public,  they  have 
somewhat  vaguely  interpreted  it  to  mean  reform  as  to  their  former 
theories  of  reducing  production.  The  fact  that  the  Amalgamated 
Clothing  Workers  seem  to  have  instituted  very  decided  reforms  along 
this  line  may  be  a  case  in  point. 

The  Interchurch  Report  in  at  least  two  instances,  accuses  the  craft 
tmions  of  not  being  willing  to  "assume  the  responsibility  for  production. " 
The  use  of  this  mere  vague  phrase  without  any  further  explanation  or 
argtiment  of  course  does  not  in  itself  commit  the  Interchurch  Report  one 
way  or  the  other  as  to  the  generally  accepted  radical  theory  of  sabotage 
to  decrease  production. 


368     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ing  facts  and  figures  in  order  to  make  that  attack  more 
violent  and  sweeping  than  the  worst  interpretation  of  the 
real  facts  could  possibly  warrant.  Moreover  as  part  of  its 
attack  on  the  steel  industry,  and  frequently  in  generaliza- 
tions in  regard  to  industry  as  a  whole,  it  constantly  attacks 
fundamental  principles  and  practices  of  our  whole  modem 
industrial  system  which  it  is  the  express  aim  of  radicalism 
to  attack  and  destroy. 

Although  in  at  least  certain  respects,  the  steel  industry 
has  been  generally  regarded  as  a  leader  in  American  indus- 
trial advancement;  although  the  present  industrial  system 
has  unquestionably  been  a  chief  factor  in  America's  growth 
and  material  prosperity,  on  which  our  social  advancement 
has  been  largely  based ;  and  although  an  overwhelming  pro- 
portion of  all  Americans  unquestionably  believe  in  the  mod- 
ern industrial  system,  as  at  least  the  best  that  is  presently 
practicable,  the  Interchurch  Report,  as  far  as  can  be  dis- 
covered,- does  not  advance  one  argument  or  conclusion  in 
favor  either  of  the  steel  companies  or  of  our  modem  indus- 
trial system. 

Although  there  are  almost  inevitably  two  sides  to  any 
industrial  dispute,  the  Interchurch  Report  without  reserva- 
tion or  qualification  argues  the  case  of  the  worker  whom 
radicalism  is  trying  to  organize  in  its  attack  on  modem 
industry.  Moreover  it  particularly  and  strongly  champions, 
even  against  the  American  workers,  the  foreign  worker  who 
is  most  susceptible  to,  and  forms  the  bulwark  of  radicalism 
in  America. 

Although  it  is  wholly  in  favor  of  labor  the  Interchurch 
Report  frequently  criticizes  openly,  and  constantly  criticizes, 
indirectly  and  by  insinuation,  the  elements  and  principles  in 
organized  labor,  particularly  craft  unions  which,  as  such,  are 
incompatible  with  radicalism,  and  frequently  openly,  and 
constantly  indirectly  and  by  insinuation,  argues  in  favor  of 
industrial  unionism,  which  works  inevitably  and  directly 
toward  radicalism. 

The  Interchurch  Report  shows  an  intimate  knowledge 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       369 

of  radical  theories  and  technical,  radical  phraseology  and 
frequently  uses  that  knowledge  in  arguments  which,  though 
they  may  seem  on  their  face  innocuous,  have  a  very  perti- 
nent meaning  to  those  who  understand  their  full  im- 
port. Of  all  those  connected  with  the  strike  the  Re- 
port is  most  openly  sympathetic  with  Foster,  the  radical 
leader. 

Radicalism,  in  attempting  to  advance  its  theories,  has 
seven  principal  lines  of  attack.  As  regards  all  seven  of  these 
it  has  been  shown  in  detail  that  the  Interchurch  Report 
strongly  attacks  the  particular  enemies  that  radicalism 
attacks — and  attacks  them  on  exactly  the  same  grounds, 
and  generally  in  exactly  the  same  phraseology  which  radical- 
ism uses. 

Radicalism  has  certain  strategic  conditions  and  practices 
and  relationships  which  it  is  constantly  seeking  to  establish 
in  industry  with  the  express  purpose  of  using  them  to  special 
radical  ends.  The  Interchurch  Report  does  not,  of  course, 
argue  these  ends — in  one  case  the  "Findings"  repudiate 
the  logical  radical  end — but  otherwise  it  argues  strongly 
in  favor  of  each  one  of  these  strategic  conditions  and  prac- 
tices and  relationships. 

From  its  very  nature,  as  assuming  to  be  an  impartial 
investigation  of  a  modem  industry,  operating  under  the 
accepted  industrial  system,  it  is  obvious  that,  irrespective 
of  how  extreme  the  radicalism  of  its  authors  may  be,  or  how 
essentially  radical  its  arguments,  the  Interchurch  Report 
could  not  carry  such  arguments  to  any  openly  radical  conclu- 
sion. For  this  would  unquestionably,  immediately  and 
ipso  facto  have  condemned  the  whole  Report  in  the  eyes  of 
the  great  majority  of  the  American  people,  and  would 
undoubtedly  have  resulted  in  a  refusal  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  as  a  whole  to  approve  and  underwrite  it, 
which  approval  by  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  and 
unsuspecting  acceptance  by  the  public,  constitute  the  es- 
sence of  the  Report's  whole  value. 

Moreover,  even  from  the  ultra-radical  point  of  view,  it  is 

94 


370       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

entirely  unnecessary  that  the  Report  should  go  farther  than 
it  does.  For  to  the  ultra-radical  agitator  who  is  condemning 
the  modern  industrial  system  on  the  stereotyped  grounds  on 
which  radicalism  seeks  particularly  to  condemn  it ;  or  who  is 
attacking  the  courts  and  police  and  public  officials  and  Press 
as  mere  tools  of  the  capitalist ;  or  who  is  arguing  with  labor 
to  form  "industrial"  instead  of  "craft"  unions,  or  who  is 
otherwise  preaching  the  fundamentals  of  radicalism,  it  is 
entirely  sufficient  that  he  can  point  to  this  supposedly  high, 
impartial  investigation  of  the  very  conditions  he  is  attack- 
ing, as  supporting  his  fundamental  claims  and  arguments 
from  a  point  of  view  and  in  phraseology  that  perfectly 
supports  his  argument. 

It  is  the  fact  that  the  Interchurch  Report  is  today  being 
used  by  radicals  everywhere  in  exactly  this  way  that  was 
the  chief  incentive  of  the  present  analysis. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

SUMMARY  OF  PART  ONE 

Considering  then  merely  the  Interchurch  Report  itself 
without  reference  to  any  outside  facts  as  to  its  origin  or 
authorship,  it  is  plain  and  conclusive  that: 

First:  The  Interchurch  Report  as  a  whole,  and  in  general 
as  to  its  separate  and  detailed  conclusions  is  based  on  evi- 
dence that  is  plainly  insufficient.  The  "rock-bottom  evi- 
dence" of  the  whole  Report  is  stated  by  the  Report  itself  to 
consist  of  "500  affidavits"  which  are  chiefly  from  "the  mass 
of  low-skilled  foreigners. "  Irrespective  of  the  value  of  these 
500  affidavits  themselves,  it  is  hardly  possible  under  any 
circumstances  that  500  such  affidavits  could  constitute 
adequate  evidence  of  facts  as  to  the  point  of  view  of  500,000 
workers  and  as  to  the  operation  of  a  great  basic  industry. 

Moreover,  in  specific  and  detailed  argument  throughout 
the  Report,  the  evidence  presented  is  equally  inadequate, 
repeatedly  consisting  merely  of  some  one  or  few  isolated, 
dramatic  incidents  or  allegations  from  which  the  Report 
immediately  generalizes  and  draws  sweeping  conclusions. 

Second:  Chiefly  because  of  its  persistence  in  generalizing 
from  insufficient  evidence,  the  Interchurch  Report  is  re- 
peatedly and  conspicuously  self-contradictory  in  regard  to 
major  conclusions.    For  instance : 

It  frequently  repeats  the  statement — as  one  of  its  main 
arguments  for  the  need  of  "Collective  Bargaining" — that 
the  workers  as  a  matter  of  practice  cannot  take  their  griev- 
ances any  higher  than  the  foreman.    Yet  in  a  majority  of 

371 


372     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  evidence  which  the  Report  itself  later  presents,  consist- 
ing of  affidavits  of  low-skilled  foreign  workers  in  regard  to 
specific  grievances,  these  affidavits  definitely  state  that  these 
workers  actually  did  take  their  grievances  "from  the  fore- 
man to  the  superintendent,"  or  "to  the  main  office,"  or  "to 
the  General  Superintendent,"  or  "to  the  general  manager." 

The  Interchurch  Report  states,  as  a  major  conclusion, 
that  common  labor  worked  (191 9)  74  hours  a  week — over 
12  hours  a  day.  It  states  as  another  major  conclusion  that 
the  annual  wage  of  steel  common  labor  for  191 9  was  "under 
$1466  a  year."  As  a  matter  of  simple  arithmetic,  based  on 
the  known  and  admitted  wage  rate,  if  common  labor  aver- 
aged over  twelve  hours  a  day,  their  wages  were  not  "under 
$1466  a  year,"  but  between  $1700  and  $1800  a  year,  or 
else  common  labor  worked  only  249  days  a  year  which 
would  entirely  contradict  the  whole  Interchurch  argument 
that  the  industry  was  "speeded  up  in  every  direction" — 
that  the  workers  only  got  a  Sunday  off  once  in  6 
months,  etc. 

The  Interchurch  Report  spends  a  major  part  of  Chapter 
II  arguing  to  the  conclusion  that  the  steel  strike  was  not 
"plotted  or  led  by  reds  or  syndicalists  or  Bolshe-\7ists" — 
that  it  did  not  seek  to  "overthrow  established  leaders  and 
established  institutions  of  organized  labor."  Chapter  VI, 
however,  is  devoted  mainly  to  showing  in  detail  that  the 
whole  unionization  and  strike  movement  was  planned  by, 
and  its  most  important  leader  was,  a  man  who  has  himself 
admitted  in  writing,  both  before  and  since  the  strike,  that 
he  was  an  ultra-radical  working  in  general,  and  in  the  steel 
strike  in  particular,  towards  overthrowing  what  are  at 
least  the  expressed  present  aims  of  organized  labor,  and  he 
specifically  refers  to  the  steel  strike  as  an  example  of  the 
degree  to  which  they  are  being  overthrown.  Moreover  the 
authors  of  the  Interchurch  Report  state  plainly  in  this 
Chapter  VI  that  they  were  entirely  and  in  detail  familiar 
with  his  point  of  view  ^nd  his  aims ;  in  which  chapter  it  is 
also  stated  that  circumstances  at  the  time  of  the  steel  strike 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       373 

and  in  general  are  forcing  all  organized  labor  from  its  pres- 
ent theories  of  "craft"  unionism  to  the  "industrial"  or 
radical  unionism  for  which  they  admit  Mr.  Foster  is  working. 
Moreover  in  this  same  later  chapter  the  Interchurch  Report 
specifically  states  that  the  two  principal  "psychological 
factors"  which  influenced  the  big  majority  of  the  "un- 
skilled foreigners"  in  the  strike — and  it  is  plainly  admitted 
that  in  general  the  unskilled  foreigners  were  the  backbone 
of  the  strike — were  such  radical  motives  as  that  the  work- 
ers had  got  control  of  the  Russian  government ;  that  they 
had  or  were  about  to  get  control  of  the  British  government ; 
that  they  expected  as  a  result  of  the  strike  that  "Mr. 
Wilson  was  going  to  run  the  steel  mills,"  etc. 

On  page  95  the  Report  states  that  the  steel  companies, 
in  their  efforts  to  force  workers  to  over-exertion,  made  each 
wage  raise  just  enough  to  meet  the  increased  cost  of  liAdng, 
yet,  in  a  footnote  on  page  97,  it  states  that  earnings  had 
gone  up  150%  during  a  period  in  which  it  is  a  matter  of 
official  record  that  the  increased  cost  of  living  had  gone 
up  only  half  that  much. 

Other  of  the  most  important  major  conclusions  and 
many  minor  conclusions  throughout  the  Report  are  simi- 
larly irreconcilably  contradictory. 

Third:  The  Interchurch  Report  is  openly  and  wholly 
an  ex  parte  argument.  The  statement  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Report  that  the  scope  of  the  inquiry  was  chiefly 
among  the  "mass  of  low-skilled  foreigners,"  and  that 
"the  statements  and  affidavits  of  500  (such)  steel  workers 
constituted  the  rock-bottom  of  the  findings,"  and  the 
repeated  statements  that  the  Interchurch  Report  investi- 
gators received  little  support  or  e\'idence  from  the  Steel 
Companies  constitute  palpable  admissions  of  the  ex  parte 
nature  of  the  whole  Report.  Such  admissions,  however,  are 
entirely  superfluous.  The  authors  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
had  available  all  the  evidence  presented  in  the  present  analysis. 
They  obviously,  however,  not  only  made  no  effort  to  seek 
out  evidence  except  on  one  side  but  they  deliberately 


374     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

omitted  to  consider  the  most  widely  known  and  official 
facts — even  facts  which  often  form  an  integral  part  of  the 
evidence  the  Report  does  use — whenever  these  facts  are  in 
any  way  favorable  to  the  steel  companies. 

In  its  entire  discussion  of  wages,  the  Interchurch  Report 
attempts  to  prove  the  contrary  without  once  mentioning 
the  existence  of  the  official  government  figures  and  other 
authoritative  studies  which  show  plainly  and  specifically 
that  steel  wages  are  by  far  the  highest  in  industry,  even 
though  some  of  these  figures  are  found  btiried  away  in  the 
Appendix  of  the  Report  itself. 

The  whole  weight  of  evidence  in  the  Senate  Investigation 
was  against  the  strike,  as  both  Foster  and  the  Interchurch 
Report  tacitly  admit  by  their  repeated  condemnation  of  the 
Senate  Investigation.  The  Interchurch  Report  quotes 
frequently  and  voluminously  from  the  Senate  Investigation. 
Yet  not  only  does  it  not  quote  any  Senate  evidence  what- 
ever that  is  in  the  least  favorable  to  the  steel  companies,  but 
in  the  unfavorable  evidence  which  it  does  quote,  it  carefiilly 
expurgates  any  statements  or  remarks  that  are  favorable  to 
the  companies'  side  and  quotes  only  that  part  which  is 
favorable  to  the  workers'  side. 

For  instance  in  Chapter  III  the  Interchurch  Report 
quotes  on  page  67,  in  an  expurgated  form,  the  testimony  of 
Mr.  Colson  before  the  Senate  committee  (for  complete 
Colson  testimony  see  Report  of  Senate  Hearings,  Part  II, 
pages  728  to  735).  Mr.  Colson's  complaint  was  that  while 
he  had  a  good  job  before  the  war  with  the  steel  company  at 
1 7 J^c  an  hour,  and  while  he  got  44c  an  hour  when  he  came 
back,  he  had  to  wait  five  months  for  his  job  and  then  only 
got  a  disagreeable  and  dangerous  job.  The  Interchurch 
Report's  expurgated  quotation  from  this  testimony  entirely 
leaves  out  the  fact  which  Mr.  Colson  inadvertently  let  slip 
and  then  was  forced  to  explain  completely  under  cross- 
examination  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Colson,  though 
only  a  common  laborer,  was  given  a  good,  semi-skilled  job 
on  a  crane  immediately  after  he  came  back  from  the  war,  but 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       375 

was  discharged  because  he  dehberately  refused  to  keep  up 
steam  and  therefore  had  to  go  back  to  common  labor  work. 
Again  on  page  143  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  almost 
all  the  Senate  testimony  of  striker  Frank  Smith,  an  un- 
naturalized Hungarian,  who  said  he  was  not  naturalized 
because  "I  have  never  stayed  long  enough  in  one  place; 
stayed  long  enough  to  get  my  papers. ' '  Mr.  Smith  received 
$4.73  for  a  ten  hour  day  which  he  said  he  could  not  live  on 
because  of  his  large  family  of  seven.  (For  complete  Smith 
testimony  see  Report  of  Senate  Hearings,  Part  H,  pages  526- 
527.)  The  Interchurch  Report  quotes  all  the  part  against 
the  steel  company,  but  carefully  leaves  out  the  following: 

The  Chairman:  "Are  there  any  other  causes  that  led  you  to  strike 
except  the  lack  of  money?  " 

Mr.  Smith:  "Well,  my  conditions  are  all  right,  I  can  say  nothing 
about  the  conditions.  My  conditions  are  all  right;  and  I  would  gladly 
do  it;  and  I  would  gladly  keep  the  work  if  I  could  make  a  living.  The 
conditions  I  was  satisfied  with." 

The  Interchurch  Report  also  carefully  leaves  out  the 
fact  that  this  man,  who  said  that  his  wages  were  not  enough 
to  support  his  family  of  seven,  testified  that  he  had  bought 
liberty  bonds,  contributed  to  the  Red  Cross  and  the  Y.  M, 
C.  A.  and  appeared  so  well  dressed  that  it  caused  one  of  the 
Senators  to  comment  on  the  fact,  and  that  he  himself 
explained  that  he  dressed  well  out  of  his  savings.  The 
Interchurch  Report  also  carefully  leaves  out  the  following : 

The  Chairman:  "Do  you  work  on  Sundays?" 
Mr.  Smith:  "Well,  not  so  much." 

Fourth:  The  Interchurch  Report  continually  resorts 
to  insinuations  and  to  misleading  language  to  create  impres- 
sions about  facts  which  it  fails  to  state  openly  or  argue  on 
their  merits. 

On  page  14,  line  i  and  elsewhere  the  Interchurch  Report 
makes,  merely  in  passing,  the  ambiguous  criticism  that 
"increases  in  wages  during  the  war  in  no  case  were  at  a 


376     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

sacrifice  of  stockholders'  dividends."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
wages  were  increased  more  than  dividends.  (See  page  68.) 

On  page  1 1 ,  Hne  25  and  repeatedly  elsewhere  the  Inter- 
church  Report  makes  the  criticism  that  "Promotion  was  at 
pleasure  of  the  company  representatives"  but  it  fails  to 
state  whether  it  would  recommend  that  the  men  themselves 
elect  their  bosses,  or  vote  for  promotion  on  the  basis  of 
popularity,  or  put  promotion  on  the  basis  of  seniority  with- 
out regard  for  efficiency,  as  the  strike  leaders  demanded,  or 
what  substitute  it  would  offer  for  a  practice  that  is  common 
and  basic  in  all  American  industry. 

Again  in  the  midst  of  its  discussion  of  steel  wages  and 
grievances  (page  95),  the  Interchurch  Report  goes  into  a 
bitter  denunciation  of  the  speeding-up  system  which 
continually  "shaves  rates,"  paying  less  and  less  in  order  to 
make  the  men  work  harder  and  harder,  creating  the  im- 
pression— though  it  is  careful  not  to  state  it — that  this  is  an 
evil  of  the  steel  industry.  As  a  matter  of  fact  all  steel 
workers  work  on  a  fixed  wage  and  only  a  small  class  of  the 
highest  paid  are  affected  by  bonuses  which  they  get  in 
addition  to  their  regular  wages,  for  extra  efficiency.  In  the 
same  way,  the  Report  bitterly  denounces,  in  such  con- 
nection and  language  as  to  seem  to  condemn  the  steel  in- 
dustry certain  other  industrial  practices  which  may  or  may 
not  exist  in  other  industries  but  which  certainly  do  not  exist 
in,  and  have  no  relation  to,  the  steel  industry. 

Many  other  statements  which  create  entirely  false 
impressions  have  already  been  emphasized.  Reference 
has  also  already  been  made  to  the  repeated  use  of  misleading 
phraseology.  In  referring  to  the  class  of  steel  workers  who 
actually  work  7  or  8  hours  a  day — 40  to  48  hours  a  week — 
the  Interchurch  Report  always  refers  to  them  as  workers 
"who  work  under  60  hours  a  week.''  On  page  198  it  uses 
the  magniloquent  phrase  "among  the  Atlantic  industrial 
nations,"  obviously  to  give  the  impression  of  many  nations 
when  actually  it  refers  only  to  Great  Britain;  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
Misleading  is  the  mildest  term  that  can  be  used  in  regard  to 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       377 

the  phraseology  of  the  Interchurch  Report  concerning  sur- 
pluses; the  phraseology  used  being  particularly  calculated 
to  create  an  entirely  false  impression  that  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration had  accumulated  in  each  of  several  years  a  surplus 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact  took  18  years  to  accumulate. 

Misleading  is  also  the  mildest  term  which  can  be  applied 
to  the  Interchurch  Report's  complaint  of  the  lack  of  statis- 
tics in  regard  to  steel  hazards — to  its  whole  argument  that 
strikers'  meetings  did  not  result  in  violence  on  the  cleverly 
worded  quibble  that  the  violence  did  not  occur  in  the 
meeting — and  to  many  other  of  its  arguments  and  state- 
ments throughout. 

Fifth:  In  regard  to  its  major  conclusions,  in  so  far  as  they 
are  susceptible  of  being  arrived  at  on  a  basis  of  definite  fact 
— which  includes  those  in  regard  to  the  most  important 
subjects  of  wages,  profits,  hazards,  the  number  of  12-hour 
workers,  the  nature  of  12-hour  work,  the  attitude  of  the 
companies  toward  the  men,  etc. — ^it  has  been  shown  specifi- 
cally and  in  detail  that  the  conclusions  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  are  the  opposite  of  the  provable  truth. 

In  regard  to  other  major  issues  in  the  steel  strike,  such 
as  the  attitude  of  the  steel  workers  towards  their  alleged 
grievances,  toward  trade  union  collective  bargaining,  in 
regard  to  the  number  of  workers  who  actually  struck,  in 
regard  to  radicalism  in  the  strike  movement,  etc. ,  which 
issues,  because  they  largely  involve  facts  as  to  the  opinions 
and  points  of  view  of  large  numbers  of  men  and  other 
complex  facts  or  complicated  circumstances,  must  be 
arrived  at  by  a  careful  determination  of  the  weight  of  evi- 
dence, it  has  been  shown  specifically  and  in  detail  that  the 
strong  weight  of  real  evidence,  which  is  seldom  even  con- 
sidered by  the  Interchurch  Report,  clearly  shows  that  the 
conclusions  which  the  Interchurch  Report  assumes  to  reach 
are  in  general  unwarranted  and  often  definitely  untrue. 

As  regards  the  broader  general  social  aspects  involved 
in  the  steel  controversy,  it  has  been  shown  specifically  and 
in  detail  that  the  Interchurch  Report  in  almost  every  case 


378     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

entirely  begs  the  question  by  merely  assuming  one  point  of 
view  and  building  on  that  assumption  without  discussing 
or  even  mentioning  many  vital  facts  on  which  the  opposite 
point  of  view  is  based,  or  even  considering  the  existence  or 
legitimate  possibility  of  other  points  of  view,  which  as  a 
matter  of  fact  are  widely  and  soundly  held. 

Sixth:  It  is  obvious  from  the  foregoing  that  the  Inter- 
church  Report  is  not,  as  it  specifically  assumes  to  be,  and 
as  the  fact  that  it  is  signed  by  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  gives  the  impression  that  it  should  be,  an 
impartial  investigation  or  argument  on  the  merits  of  the 
case,  but  that  on  the  contrary  it  is  a  self-evidently  inaccur- 
ate, self-contradictory  and  blatantly  ex  parte  argument 
and  as  such  not  a  safe  textbook  even  for  those  who  desire 
to  agree  with  its  conclusions. 

Seventh:  But  the  Interchurch  Report  cannot  be  regarded 
merely  as  an  over-zealous  ex  parte  argument  for  it  reaches 
its  conclusions,  which  it  itself  frequently  admits  are  the 
opposite  of  those  held  by  American  public  opinion  in  general, 
not  only  through  the  faulty  arguments  and  questionable 
methods  already  emphasized  but  repeatedly  through  means 
that  are  utterly  indefensible  on  any  grounds. 

A.  The  Interchurch  Report  advances,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  three  arguments  as  to  steel  wages.  The  first 
of  these  self-evidently  contradicts  or  is  contradicted  by  its 
whole  1 2-hour  argument.  The  second  fails  to  consider  one 
of  the  most  important  economic  facts  and  one  of  the  most 
commonly  known  facts  in  American  industrial  life.  The 
third  argument  which  assumes  to  compare  hourly  wage  rates 
in  different  trades  is  built  around  a  table  on  page  102  which 
assumes  to  compare  common  labor  wage  rates  in  coal 
mining  and  building  trades  with  those  in  steel.  This  table 
is  grossly  manipulated  and  falsified: — (i)  in  that  while  its 
own  quoted  authorities  plainly  show  22  industries,  trades  or 
occupations  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for  com- 
rilon  labor,  this  Interchurch  table  states  that  the  three 
trades  given  are  the  only  trades  "for  which  there  are  sepa- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       379 

rate  statistics  for  laborers;  (2)  in  that,  while  all  of  these 
trades  show  far  lower  weekly  or  daily  earnings  than  steel, 
and  19  of  them  show  also  lower  hourly  earnings,  yet 
ignoring  these  19  and  featuring  only  the  special  two,  the 
Interchurch  Report  makes  in  italics  the  absolutely  false 
statement  that  "steel  common  labor  has  the  lowest  rate  of 
pay  of  the  trades  for  which  there  are  separate  statistics  for 
laborers."  In  order  further  to  bolster  up  this  absolutely 
false  conclusion,  the  Interchurch  Report  further  falsifies 
this  table  by  (3)  adding  in  semi-skilled  labor  in  the  building 
trades  as  common  labor,  and  (4)  adding  in  exactly  the  same 
semi-skilled  labor  twice  and  counting  all  other  classifications 
of  common  labor  only  once  (See  pages  40  to  47,  present  anal- 
ysis). 

B.  The  entire  341  pages  of  Voltmie  IV  of  Senate  Doc- 
ument no,  to  which  the  Interchurch  Report  frequently 
otherwise  refers,  is  devoted  to  an  elaborate  statistical  study  of 
steel  hazards.  The  Interchurch  Report  elsewhere  refers  to 
an  obscure  sentence  on  page  189  of  the  Senate  Hearings,  on 
the  opposite  facing  page  to  which  appears  a  conspicuous 
detailed  table  of  insurance  statistics  in  regard  to  steel  haz- 
ards. The  Interchurch  Report  refers  to  the  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Labor  Bulletin  for  October,  1919,  more  frequently  than  to 
any  other  document.  The  most  conspicuous  section  of 
this  document  is  devoted  to  an  elaborate  study  of  steel 
hazards.  At  least  two  other  government  studies  of  steel 
hazards  are  also  available.  All  these  government  studies 
with  all  their  conspicuous  tables  and  charts  plainly  show 
and  specifically  state  a  conclusion  in  regard  to  steel  hazards 
which  is  the  opposite  of  the  whole  argument  and  conclusion 
of  the  Interchurch  Report.  In  connection  with  one  such 
study,  however  (October,  1919),  there  is  one  special  table 
which  plainly  states  that  it  represents  only  a  special  37.8% 
of  all  industrial  accidents  and  plainly  states  that  it  is  used  to 
show  percentage  of  compensation,  not  of  accidents.  Yet, 
while  specifically  complaining  about  a  lack  of  statistics, 
the  Interchurch  Report,  ignoring  all  these  elaborate  govern- 


38o     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ment  studies  of  steel  hazards,  including  the  one  in 
connection  with  which  its  own  table  appears,  takes  this  one 
table,  expurgates  all  the  figures  in  regard  to  the  percentage 
of  compensation,  leaves  out  the  plain  statement  as  to 
what  this  table  actually  represents,  and  then  so  introduces 
and  features  this  expurgated  table  as  to  make  it  seem  to 
bolster  up  a  conclusion  which  is  the  opposite  of  the  truth 
(See  pages  146  to  155,  present  analysis). 

C.  In  its  "  12-hour"  chapter,  in  discussing  steel  working 
hours,  the  Interchurch  Report  consistently  refers  to  the 
great  groups  of  7,  8,  and  9  hour  workers  with  the  entirely 
misleading  phrase,  workers  who  "can  work  under  60  hours 
a  week. ' '  It  uses  as  the  basis  of  all  its  argument  throughout 
the  chapter,  figures  which  it  calls  " for  1919 " and  "October, 
1919"  and  otherwise  represents  as  substantially  normal, 
but  which  are  plainly  stated  in  their  original  source,  and 
attention  called  to  the  fact  that  they  are  chiefly  for  Decem- 
ber, 1918,  and  January,  1919,  the  first  two  months  after  the 
war.  Beyond  this  the  Interchurch  Report  bases  its  whole 
sensational  case  about  the  7-day  week  chiefly  on  a  some- 
what lengthy  quotation  on  page  72  from  page  17  of  the 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin2i8andstates both beforeand 
after  this  quotation  a  conclusion  which  is  the  opposite 
of  what  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  itself  twice  plainly  states 
these  figures  actually  to  mean.  Moreover,  the  Interchurch 
Report's  quotation,  though  given  as  continuous,  is  plainly 
shown  by  reference  to  the  original  to  be  a  handpicking  of 
this  Bureau  of  Labor  evidence,  paragraph  by  paragraph, 
from  which  the  Interchurch  Report  publishes  only  the  figures 
or  statements  which  it  can  thus  misinterpret  and  entirely 
leaves  out  the  intervening  figures  or  statements  v/hich  are 
so  plain  that  they  cannot  be  thus  misconstrued  (See  pages  84 
to  85,  present  analysis). 

D.  To  support  its  last  and  seemingly  most  damning 
arraignment  of  the  12-hour  day,  the  Interchurch  Report 
undertakes  to  show  that  steel  hours  have  "tended  to 
lengthen  over  a  decade"  and  that  the  number  of  12 -hour 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       381 

workers  is  constantly  increasing.  This  utterly  false  con- 
clusion, it  attempts  to  bolster  up,  partly  by  representing  the 
December,  1918-January,  1919,  figures  as  for  the  year  1919 
and  as  for  normal,  and  comparing  these  with  other  govern- 
ment figures  for  1910  and  1914.  Particularly  on  pages 
54,  56,  71  and  72,  the  Interchurch  Report  quotes  a  variety 
of  tables  from  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  records  but  in  each 
case  especially  rearranges  or  rewords  these  tables  and 
especially  divides  them  up  to  compare  19 10  and  19 19,  and 
1914  and  1919  but  never  1910  and  1914.  It  then  carefully 
separates  these  manipulated  comparisons  by  so  many  inter- 
vening pages  or  buries  them  under  such  complicated  re- 
wordings  that  their  meaning  which  is  entirely  plain  in  their 
normal  chronological  sequence  seems  on  casual  reading  of 
these  carefully  manipulated  rearrangements  to  be  the 
opposite,  and  then  the  Interchurch  Report  states  and 
emphasizes  that  this  manipulated  rearrangement  does 
show  the  opposite  of  the  real  facts  which  these  tables  in 
their  normal  order  plainly  show. 

In  this  same  connection  the  Interchurch  Report  prints 
certain  figures  which  it  specifically  states  are  from  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor,  October,  1919,  Monthly  Review.  One 
group  of  these  figures  show  on  their  face  they  are  false 
because  they  contradict  each  other.  When  the  other  group 
is  compared  with  U.S.  Bureau  of  Labor  figures  from  which 
it  is  stated  to  be  taken,  it  is  found  that  the  figures  are  utterly 
different  from  the  original  government  figures — that  they 
allege  to  show  almost  the  opposite  of  what  the  original 
government  figures  plainly  show — that  they  are  so  wholly 
different  that  no  possible  "weighting"  or  possible  mathe- 
matical error,  or  error  of  copying  or  computing  from  the 
original,  can  reconcile  them  with  the  actual  government 
figures — that  as  far  as  being  what  they  are  stated  to  be  is 
concerned,  they  are  made  out  of  whole  cloth  to  support 
an  equally  false  argtmient — (see  pages  93  to  107  present 
analysis) . 

Moreover,  in  each  of  these  cases  and  others,  the  manip- 


382     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ulation  and  falsification  is  so  skilfully  done  as  to  just  what 
is  left  out  and  just  what  is  put  in,  as  to  just  how  the  arrange- 
ment is  made,  the  conclusions  sought  to  be  shown  are  so 
cleverly  led  up  to  or  heightened  by  the  context,  and  this 
manipulation  and  falsification  is  so  repeated  in  regard  to 
statistics  in  such  widely  different  fields,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  explain  these  or  other  similar  cases  on  the  grounds  of 
coincidence  or  accident. 

Eighth:  The  pubHcation  of  its  second  voltime,  including 
one  considerable  group  of  its  "  500  rock-bottom  affidavits  " 
shows  that  this  fundamental  evidence  on  which  the  Inter- 
church  Report  itself  states  that  it  is  based  is,  at  least  as  far 
as  there  is  any  basis  for  judging  or  checking  it,  as  man- 
ipulated and  falsified  as  the  foregoing  "statistics." 

The  Interchurch  Report  begins  the  section  in  which  it 
presents  these ' '  rock- bottom  affidavits ' '  by  citing  as  evidence 
of  "police  brutalities"  Father  Kazinki's  sensational  state- 
ments, which  were  widely  used  as  strike  propaganda,  alleging 
an  "assault  by  state  troopers  upon  his  people  as  they  were 
coming  out  of  church"  and  "the  charging  by  mounted 
troopers  upon  little  children  as  they  were  assembled  in  the 
schoolyard"  and  does  this  without  any  explanation  of  or 
reference  to  the  fact  that  Father  Kazinki  himself,  under  oath 
and  cross-examination,  had  publicly  repudiated  all  the 
material  parts  of  these  statements. 

The  Interchurch  Report  itself  admits  that  these  "rock- 
bottom  affidavits"  were  not  in  general  composed  or  phrased 
by  the  men  who  signed  them  with  their  names  or  marks.  It 
states  that  they  were  largely  composed  and  phrased  by  its 
own  investigators  or  by  James  R.  Maurer,  President  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Federation  of  Labor.  Mr.  Maurer  is  a  con- 
spicuous radical  who  signed  himself  in  now-published  corres- 
pondence with  the  Russian  Soviet  as  "representing 300 radi- 
cal groups  in  42  states."  Of  the  41  "rock-bottom  affidavits " 
published,  over  30  show  dates  before  the  Interchurch  in- 
vestigation began  and  therefore  must  have  been  secured  by 
Mr.  Maurer. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       383 

Although  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  police  court  or 
other  records  of  the  facts  alleged  in  many  of  these  affidavits 
must  necessarily  have  existed,  the  Interchurch  Report 
makes  no  mention  of  having  examined  into  any  such  other 
evidence,  but  publishes  only  these  complaints  of  the  alleged 
victims  of  police  brutality  or  judicial  discrimination  un- 
supported, or  in  a  few  cases  supported  by  other  strikers  or 
strike  leaders. 

Although  at  most  these  affidavits  self -evidently  tell  only  a 
small  part  and  only  one  side  of  the  story,  many  of  them  do 
not  even  make  any  direct  allegation  at  all  but  consist 
solely  of  vivid  description  and  exclamations,  cleverly 
worded  to  give  an  impression  of  fact  which  obviously 
whoever  is  actually  responsible  for  such  affidavits  was 
unwilling  to  swear  to  as  facts.  Throughout,  these  "affi- 
davits" consist  far  more  of  vivid,  emotional  and  plainly 
propaganda  description  than  of  specific  allegation,  their 
phraseology,  the  points  they  make  and  the  way  they  make 
them  being  not  only  strikingly  similar  to  each  other  but 
strikingly  parallel  to  stock  propaganda,  for  which  purpose 
they  are  known  to  have  been  originally  used  by  Mr.  Maurer. 
The  fact,  therefore,  that  they  were  largely  composed  and 
written  by  Maurer  or  his  assistants  and  merely  signed  by 
the  name,  or  generally  the  mark,  of  a  man  or  women  who 
couldn't  read  or  write  English,  is  correspondingly  significant. 

Moreover  Governor  Sproul,  to  whom  these  Maurer 
"affidavits"  were  originally  submitted,  investigated  the 
most  striking  allegations  and  found  them  to  be  utterly 
without  foundation.  Some  of  them  were  also  gone  into 
again  by  the  Senate  Committee.  But  except  in  one 
immaterial  case,  the  Interchurch  Report  does  not  mention 
this.  It  does,  however,  publish  one  such  "affidavit."  It 
signs  it  P.  F.  Grogan.  This  "affidavit"  goes  into  the  most 
harrowing  details  about  drunk  or  crazy  troopers  firing 
volley  after  volley  into  fleeing  crowds  of  helpless  strikers, 
their  wives  and  babies.  It  follows  a  reiteration  by  the 
Interchurch  Report  itself  of  charges  of  "men  and  women 


384     ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

murdered, ' ' '  'hundreds  wounded. "  It  is  followed  by  another 
"affidavit"  which  ends  with  the  exclamation:  "There  was 
no  provocation  for  said  riding  over  women  and  children." 
Before  the  Senate  Committee  this  same  P.  F.  Grogan,  who 
there  gave  his  name  as  5rogan^  attempted  to  give  the  same 
description  of  the  brutal  and  indiscriminate  shooting 
and  riding  down  of  helpless  men,  women  and  children,  but 
under  cross-examination  was  forced  to  admit  and  reiterate 
that  no  one  was  hit  as  far  as  he  knew,  and  except  for  one 
woman  whose  hand  was  hurt,  no  one  was  injured.  Yet  8 
months  later,  the  Interchurch  Report  published  as  the  chief 
of  its  "rock-bottom  evidence"  of  "hundreds  wounded"  the 
original  propaganda  statement  of  Mr.  Brogan — without 
mentioning  the  fact  that  he  was  a  strike  organizer  and  a 
Secretary  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  without  men- 
tioning the  fact  that  under  oath  and  cross-examination  he 
had  repudiated  all  the  sensational  and  material  part  of  this 
statement,  and  also  leaving  out  the  first  half  of  the  name  of 
the  town  where  the  incident  occurred,  and  changing  the 
first  letter  of  Mr.  Brogan's  name  so  that  this  repudiation 
cannot  be  referred  to  through  the  index  of  either  the  Inter- 
church Report  or  the  Senate  Hearings  (See  Chapter  XXII, 
present  analysis). 

Ninth:  The  lengths  to  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
thus  constantly  goes  to  support  its  ex  parte  argument  natu- 
rally raises  the  question  as  to  just  where  that  ex  parte 
argument  leads. 

That  it  is  in  favor  of  the  workers,  and  particularly  the 
unskilled  foreign  workers,  and  their  demands,  is  of  course 
obvious,  but  it  is  also  obvious  that  the  Interchurch  Report 
argument  constantly  goes  much  further  than  this  and  it  is 
conspicuous  that  at  least  certain  parts  of  the  Report  argue 
to  certain  theories  and  conclusions  which  are  generally 
regarded  as  radical. 

Following  this  lead,  a  careful  comparison  between  the 

'  Foster  also  gives  his  name  as  Brogan;  see  Great  Steel  Strike,  page 
59. 


.mm 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       385 

seven  chief  aims  to  which  the  Socialist,  Communist,  Syn- 
dicalist and  other  radical  groups  are  in  common  committed, 
with  the  principal  arguments  of  the  Interchurch  Report, 
shows  that — in  the  attacks  and  the  kind  of  attacks  it  makes 
on  certain  specific  forces  of  law  and  order, — in  the  type  of 
labor  organization  it  specifically  favors — in  both  the  quan- 
tity and  quality  of  its  argxmient  on  free  speech — in  the 
phraseology  in  which  it  words  these  attacks  and  advances 
these  theories — and  otherwise,  the  Interchurch  Report 
exactly  parallels  official  manifestos  of  the  Communist  Party 
and  other  official  ultra-radical  propaganda  documents. 
Moreover  with  this  fact  established,  an  examination  of  the 
whole  Report  shows  clearly  that  many  of  its  arguments  and 
conclusions  are  entirely  incompatible  with  the  operation 
of  the  whole  modem  industrial  system,  while,  except  for  one 
conclusion  in  the  separate  "Findings,"  not  only  is  no 
argument  in  the  Report  incompatible  with  radical  theories 
and  aims  but  all  its  principal  arguments  in  regard  to  wages, 
surplus,  control  of  industry,  labor  unions,  social  conse- 
quences are,  at  least  as  far  as  they  go,  exactly  parallel  to 
the  fundamental  arguments  of  radicalism,  entirely  and 
particularly  susceptible  of  being  quoted  and  used  in  favor  of 
radicalism,  and  are  as  a  matter  of  fact  being  so  quoted  and 
used  by  radicals  in  all  parts  of  the  country  today. 


If  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  had  been 
published  by  any  ordinary  author,  or  had  been  presented  by 
any  ordinary  investigating  committee  the  document  itself 
would  have  had  to  stand  or  fall  on  its  own  merits.  Even 
though  it  had  used  the  original  device,  which  the  Inter- 
church Report  uses,  of  stating  its  most  important  con- 
clusions in  the  beginning  of  the  book  and  arguing  them  later, 
still  under  ordinary  conditions,  those  conclusions  would 
have  had  little  weight  until  the  argument  on  which  they 
were  based  had  been  carefully  analyzed.  In  other  words, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  authorship  of  a  report  is 

as 


386       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

entirely  secondary  to  the  merits  of  the  report  itself,  and 
under  such  circumstances,  such  an  analysis  as  the  present — 
if  it  had  seemed  necessary  at  all — could  have  stopped  at  the 
present  point. 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike,  however,  was 
not  presented  by  any  ordinary  author  or  any  ordinary 
investigating  committee.  It  is  stated  in  its  title  to  be  the 
work  of  a  great  nation-wide  Christian  organization.  It  is 
specifically  signed  by  eight  men^  and  one  woman  of  national 
standing  in  the  Christian  world.  Moreover  it  states  that  it 
was ' '  unanimously  adopted ' '  and  approved  by  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  a  body 
largely  made  up  of  men  whose  great  prominence  in  our 
national  religious  life  has  made  their  integrity  and  high- 
mindedness  unquestioned. 

These  facts  obviously  make  the  question  of  the  actual 
authorship  of  the  Interchurch  Report  of  paramount  impor- 
tance. For  if  such  a  document  as  the  Interchurch  Report 
under  analysis  clearly  proves  itself  to  be  could  have  been 
actually  prepared  and  presented  with  full  knowledge  of  its 
contents  to  American  Christians  as  an  adequate  treatise  on 
a  great  economic  problem  by  such  prominent  Christian 
leaders  as  the  men  whose  names  are  specifically  signed  to  it 
— if  such  a  document  could  have  been  knowingly,  ' '  unan- 
imously approved"  by  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Interchurch  World  Movement  as  an  expression  of  the 
Protestant  Church's  official  point  of  view  toward  modern 
economic  problems,  that  fact  is  far  more  significant  than 
the  Report  itself  to  the  whole  American  public. 

» Ako  by  Mr.  Heber  Blankenhom  as  Secretary  to  the  Commission. 


PART  TWO 

HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH  REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL 
STRIKE 

Facts  and  circumstances  which  led  up  to  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  Investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike,  including  a 
chronological  statement  as  to  the  principal  resolutions,  author- 
izations, and  findings  upon  which  committees  were  appointed 
or  acted;  as  to  the  personnel  of  committees  and  other  bodies  that 
assisted  toward  or  in  the  investigation;  together  with  a  brief 
history  of  the  investigation  and  the  composition  and  authoriza- 
tion of  the  Report. 


387 


CONTENTS  OF  PART  TWO 

Introduction  to  Part  Two         .        .        .     391 
I. — Organization  and  Personnel  of  the  De- 
partment OF  Industrial  Relations  393 
II. — The  Origin  of  the  Steel  Strike  Investiga- 
tion         400 

III. — The  Special  "Coi^ission  of  Inquiry"  to 
Investigate  and  Report  on  the  Steel 

Strike 408 

IV. — "Staff    of     Field     Investigators"     and 

"  Technical  Assistants  "  .         .         .    417 

V. — History  of  the  Composition  and  Author- 
ship OF  THE  INTERCHURCH  REPORT  ON  THE 

Steel  Strike 433 

Summary  of  Part  II  ....    456 


389 


INTRODUCTION   TO   PART  TWO 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  is  a  pub- 
lished document.  Its  conclusions  and  the  alleged  facts, 
figures  and  other  evidence  on  which  these  conclusions  are 
based  are  matters  of  definite  record.  As  such  they  can  be 
definitely  analyzed  and  compared  point  by  point  in  detail 
with  other  facts  and  figtues  and  evidence  and  with  the 
original  sources  from  which  they  themselves  were  taken. 

Conclusions  as  to  the  merits  of  the  Interchurch  Report, 
therefore,  in  no  way  depend  on  any  facts  as  to  its  origin. 
Whatever  circiunstances  led  up  to  its  preparation  and  who- 
ever were  its  authors  cannot  change  the  facts  already  pre- 
sented as  to  the  Report  itself.  These  facts  as  to  the  merits 
of  the  Report,  on  the  other  hand,  are  themselves  so  con- 
clusive as  to  the  quality  of  its  authorship  that  they  inevi- 
tably raise  the  question  as  to  whether  it  is  possible  that  the 
conspicuous  Christian  leaders  who  signed  the  Interchurch 
Report  could  have  been  its  actual  authors. 

The  question  of  the  actual  authorship  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  has  been  frequently  raised.  The  New  York  Legisla- 
tive Investigation  of  Radicalism  states  definitely  that  the 
inquiry  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  is  based  was  under 
the  direction  of  certain  well-known  radicals.  But  it  does 
not  go  beyond  this  mere  statement. 

Part  II  of  the  present  analysis,  therefore,  is  devoted  to  an 
effort  to  present  as  clearly  and  definitely  as  possible  all  the 
facts  available  as  to  the  origin,  preparation  and  actual 
authorship  of  this  Report. 

391 


392         INTRODUCTION  TO  PART  TWO 

The  facts  surrounding  the  preparation  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  are  chiefly  not  matter  of  printed  or  even  written 
record.  Many  of  them  can  only  be  gathered  from  state- 
ments of  men,  often  with  different  points  of  view.  These 
men  were  all  officially  connected  with  the  Interchurch 
Movement  and  had  personal  knowledge  of  the  facts  they 
state.  But  detailed  recollection  and  interpretation  of  facts 
two  years  after  their  occurrence,  while  often  the  best  evi- 
dence available  is  obviously  not  infallible.  Certain  con- 
clusions must  be  qualified  accordingly. 

In  addition  to  certain  documentary  evidence,  the  facts 
and  information  presented  in  Part  II  have,  except  as  other- 
wise stated,  been  acquired  through  personal  interviews  with 
the  gentlemen  who  are  given  as  authority  for  each  partic- 
ular fact  or  statement  when  it  is  presented.  Written 
memoranda  of  the  substance  of  each  conversation  were  made 
by  the  author  immediately  after  such  interviews.  What 
is  herein  stated  on  the  authority  of  such  individuals  has 
with  the  two  exceptions  noted,  in  each  case  been  submitted 
in  its  present  form  to  such  individual  for  correction,  and 
includes  any  such  corrections  as  have  been  made. 


CHAPTER  I 

ORGANIZATION    AND    PERSONNEL    OF    THE    DEPARTMENT    OF 

INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS  WHICH  ORIGINATED  THE 

STEEL  STRIKE  INVESTIGATION 

The  year  191 9,  during  which  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  was  organized,  was  a  period  in  which  more  new 
big  questions — political,  social,  economic,  and  religious — 
were  being  agitated  and  pressed  than  at  perhaps  any  other 
time  in  our  own,  if  not  in  world,  history. 

The  League  of  Nations,  Women's  Suffrage,  Prohibition, 
the  Plumb  Plan  for  government  ownership  of  the  railroads, 
were  merely  typical  of  a  great  number  of  plans  and 
theories  and  ideas  which  were  being  urged  upon  a  nation 
which,  with  many  of  its  former  ideals  and  systems  up- 
rooted by  the  war,  was  honestly  questioning  whether  or 
not  there  might  be  better  ideals  and  systems  before  it  de- 
cided to  return  to  its  old  ones. 

Again  in  the  consideration  of  economic  or  political  or 
religious  or  any  other  broadly  human  problems,  it  is  inevi- 
table that  there  should  be  widely  divergent  opinions  as  to 
the  ends  to  be  sought,  the  means  to  those  ends,  and  the 
methods  by  which  those  means  should  be  pursued — ^in 
short,  that  in  such  fields  of  thought  or  endeavor  there  should 
be  radicals  and  liberals,  progressives  and  conservatives. 

Moreover  in  any  period  of  such  general  questions  and 
questionings  as  that  which  immediately  followed  the  war, 
it  is  inevitable  that  a  disproportionately  large  niunber  of 

393 


394      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

men's  minds  should  be  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  the  times 
to  a  tendency  to  a  more  extreme  point  of  view  than  they 
would  normally  hold. 

Finally  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  whereas  the  man  of 
conservative  or  moderate  views  is  generally  interested  and 
occupied  chiefly  along  some  line  of  normal  work,  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  man  with  extreme  or  radical  views  that  he 
is  most  actively  interested  and  engaged  in  furthering  his 
views. 

All  these  particular  facts  must  be  taken  into  account  in 
any  attempt  to  analyze  any  of  the  activities  of  the  Inter- 
church  World  Movement  which  was  itself  a  great  new  effort, 
typical  of  the  period,  to  find  new  ways  to  accelerate  the 
spiritual  and  idealistic  progress  of  the  whole  world. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  Interchurch  World  sessions  a 
certain  faction  had  strongly  and  consistently  urged,  as  one 
means  of  broadening  the  churches'  influence,  a  much  more 
definite  and  concrete  appeal  to  the  laboring  classes  as  such. 
Part  of  this  group  also  strongly  urged  that  the  churches 
should  seek  to  make  their  influence  felt  in  the  great  industrial 
problems  of  the  day. 

In  July,  1 9 19,  a  certain  organization  within  the  Catholic 
Church  made  a  general  public  announcement  of  a  policy 
which  undoubtedly  materially  influenced  the  formation  by 
the  (Protestant)  Interchurch  World  Movement  of  its  In- 
dustrial Relations  Department^  whose  principal  activity 
was  the  investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike. 

Mr.  Tyler  Dennett,  Chief  of  Publicity  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement — and  through  his  long  business  relation- 
ship with  Mr.  G.  Earl  Taylor,  General  Secretary  of  the  or- 

*  "This  is  inaccurate,  the  first  step  towards  an  Industrial  Relations 
Department  was  taken  at  a  general  committee  meeting  in  Cleveland 
May  2nd,  1919.  Formation  of  the  department  came  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  it  was  partly  in  existence  before  the  Catholic  Report  became 
public."  J.  E.  C. 

"Craig's  note  is  correct.  Nevertheless  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
Catholic  manifesto  served  as  a  great  stimulus  to  the  I.  W.  M.'s  industrial 
activities."  S.  W. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       395 

ganization,  as  well  as  because  of  his  own  position,  in  inti- 
mate touch  with  its  activities — in  his  book,  A  Better  World 
(page  75,  lines  18-32),  in  referring  to  the  influence  of  this 
announcement  of  the  Catholic  Church,  says: 

"Nor  can  we  overlook  the  fact  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in 
the  United  States,  through  the  National  Catholic  War  Council,  has  gone 
on  record  for  a  form  of  social  ownership  of  the  means  of  production  which  is 
far  more  explicit  and  more  in  line  with  the  democratic  movement  of  the  age 
in  industry  than  many  a  Protestant  denomination  can  claim," 

and  he  specifically  quotes — 

"Nevertheless  the  full  possibility  of  increased  production  will  not  be 
realized  as  long  as  the  majority  of  the  workers  remain  mere  wage  earners. 
The  majority  must  somehow  become  owners,  or  at  least  in  part,  of  the 
instruments  of  production." 

After  the  appearance  of  this  announcement  by  a  faction 
of  the  other  religious  body  of  the  country,  the  Interchurch 
faction  which  had  long  urged  that  policy  now  insisted  that 
the  Interchurch  World  Movement  should  extend  its  influ- 
ence and  activities  into  the  industrial  field  and  that  it 
should  particularly  interest  itself  in  the  human  problems  of 
labor.  Less  than  a  month  later  the  Executive  Committee 
of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  created  the  Industrial 
Relations  Department  whose  general  executive  offices, 
according  to  the  Interchurch  official  handbook,  Part  III, 
page  117,  were: 

Dr.  (Now  Bishop)  Fred  B.  Fisher,  Director. 

Doubtless  partly  because  of  his  eulogy  of  Bishop  McCon- 
nell  as  a  "radical  Bishop  "  and  his  frequent  similar  use  of  the 
word  "radical "  at  the  time  of  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 
ment activities,  certain  of  Dr.  Fisher's  more  conservative 
associates  in  the  movement  have  characterized  him  as 
radical  or  leaning  towards  radicalism.  A  study  of  Dr. 
Fisher's  published  works,  however,  hardly  seem  to  justify 
such  a  conclusion.  Two  of  his  three  most  prominent 
works.  Garments  of  Power,  A  Pathway  for  Mystics,  and  Gifts 


396      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

from  the  Desert  show  his  strong  trend  of  thought  towards 
what  is  known  philosophically  as  "mysticism."  "Mys- 
ticism," according  to  Century  Dictionary,  is: 

"A  form  of  religious  belief  which  is  founded  upon  spiritual  experience 
not  discriminated  or  tested  and  systematized  in  thought.  Rationalism 
regards  the  reason  as  the  highest  faculty  of  man;  mysticism  on  the  other 
hand  declares  that  spiritual  truth  cannot  be  comprehended  by  the 
logical  faculty." 

This  rather  than  any  actual  radical  point  of  view  seems 
to  be  characteristic  of  Dr.  Fisher's  type  of  thinking. 

In  another  volume  entitled,  Ways  to  Win,  Dr.  Fisher 
strongly  advocates  the  entrance  of  local  religious  organiza- 
tions as  such  into  politics  and  particularly  advocates  that 
local  ministers  attempt  to  make  themselves  arbitrators  in 
strikes  and  other  industrial  and  social  controversies  and 
attempt  to  use  the  influence  of  the  church  to  force  an  ac- 
ceptance of  such  arbitration.  Such  theories  may  be  ques- 
tioned as  to  their  practicability  or  soundness  but  they  are 
hardly  radical  in  the  commonly  accepted  sense  of  the  term.* 

Mr.  Robert  W.  Bruere,  Superintendent  Research  Division. 
Mr.  Bruere  is  a  graduate  of  Washington  University,  St. 
Louis,  and  was  for  a  time  a  special  student  at  the  University 
of  Berlin.  He  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  Intercol- 
legiate Socialistic  Society.  He  has  long  been  associated 
with  the  Rand  School  of  Social  Science,  where  he  has  been 
a  lecturer  on  American  Literature.  Mr.  Bruere  has  also 
been  conspicuously  associated  with  other  extreme  radical 

»  "I  should  call  Fisher  an  'instinctive  radical.'  His  first  impulse  on 
any  question  would  be  to  the  radical  point  of  view.  This  would  be  apt 
to  be  modified  later  whenever  he  really  sat  down  to  think  the  thing  out 
But  his  snap  judgement  on  any  matter  would  almost  certainly  be 
radical."  S.W. 

"Fisher  is  a  mystic  in  the  same  sense  that  practically  all  Methodists 
are  mystics.  An  element  of  it  is  inseparable  from  the  creed.  Personally 
Fisher  is  one  of  the  least  mystical  of  all  high  Methodist  clergymen." 

J.  E.  C. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       397 

movements.  He  has  published  several  articles  over  his  own 
name  in  the  New  Republic  defending  the  I.  W.  W.  and  two 
particularly  radical  articles  in  the  Nation  of  February  21  and 
28,  1918.  When  Mr.  William  D.  Heywood  and  other  mem- 
bers of  the  I.  W.  W.  were  being  tried  by  the  government 
for  conspiracy  to  urge  and  assist  the  evasion  of  the  draft 
laws  and  particularly  for  assisting  10,000  drafted  men  to 
evade,  for  which  they  were  convicted  and  are  now  serving 
prison  sentences  or  are  fugitives  from  justice,  Mr.  Bruere 
was  conspicuously  active  in  raising  a  defense  fund  for  them, 
even  going  to  the  extent  of  signing  his  name  to  an  advertise- 
ment applying  for  such  funds  published  in  the  New  Re- 
public, June  22,  191 8.  Mr.  Bruere  was  one  of  the  founders 
and  is  the  director  of  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research, 
which  organization  the  Interchurch  Report  states  furnished 
the  "technical  assistance"  and  part  of  the  "evidence"  and 
the  direction  of  the  "staff  of  investigators"  on  which  "as- 
sistance" and  "evidence"  the  Report  as  analyzed  in  part 
one  of  the  present  voltmies  was  based. 

Moreover  there  is  no  question  that  many  of  the  leading 
officials  of  the  Interchurch  Movement  knew  these  facts  as 
to  Mr.  Bruere's  activities  and  points  of  view.  During  the 
time  the  question  of  whether  the  Steel  Strike  Report  should 
or  should  not  be  published  was  being  discussed  by  Inter- 
church officials  several  members  of  the  National  Civic 
Federation  (of  which  Mr.  Samuel  Gompers  is  vice-president 
— indicating  at  least  that  this  organization  was  not  working 
in  the  interests  of  the  Steel  Corporation)  brought  Mr. 
Bruere's  conspicuous  radical  record  particularly  to  the  at- 
tention of  various  such  Interchurch  officials.  They  were 
emphasized  again  in  a  special  conference  held  between  Mr. 
Ralph  M.  Easley  of  the  Civic  Federation  and  members  of 
the  Interchurch  Commission  of  Investigation  which  had 
direct  charge  of  the  Steel  Strike  investigation  and  Report. 
Finally  several  weeks  later  (July  10,  1920)  Mr.  Easley 
wrote  one  of  these  members  in  part  as  follows : — 


398      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

"  We  also  at  our  interview  discussed  Mr.  Robert  W.  Bruere,  of  whom 
you  spoke  in  the  highest  terms,  saying,  in  effect,  that,  if  you  were  go- 
ing to  organize  any  big  industrial  movement,  he  would  be  the  first  nian 
to  whom  you  would  go  for  advice. 

"  From  your  enthusiastic  endorsement  of  that  gentleman,  I  assume 
that  you  are  not  thoroughly  conversant  with  his  keen  sympathy  and 
association  with  that  disloyal  band  of  cut-throats,  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World,  or  with  his  efforts  to  raise  a  defense  fimd  of 
$50,000  to  fight  the  United  States  in  the  trial  of  these  men  at  Chicago 
for  treasonable  and  seditious  conduct,  for  which  conduct,  in  spite  of 
the  money  raised  by  Mr.  Bruere,  they  were  convicted  and  sent  to  jail. 
Also,  I  cannot  believe  that  you  have  read  his  notorious  I.  W.  W.  de- 
fense, '  On  the  trail  of  the  I.  W.  W.,'  written  for  Oswald  Garrison 
Villard,  that  equally  notorious  pro-German  pacifist  and  warm  defender 
of  all  radical  movements.  .  .  . 

"  As  you  doubtless  know,  The  New  York  Call  is  an  official  organ  of 
the  Socialist  Party  and  enjoys  the  distinction  of  being  denied  the  use 
of  the  mails  by  our  government  because  of  its  peculiar  seditious  char- 
acter. ...  As  recently  as  July  4,  The  New  York  Call  announced  a 
series  of  articles  by  Robert  Bruere  in  the  following  language: 

" '  This  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  articles  by  Robert  W.  Bruere,  which 
will  appear  weekly  in  The  Call  hereafter. 

"  'Bruere  is  a  publicist  of  international  repute.  His  impartial  analy- 
sis of  the  I.  W.  W.,  published  during  the  war  in  a  local  paper,  was 
generously  recognized  as  a  notable  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
labor  in  this  country.  Bruere  is  now  connected  with  the  Bureau  of 
Industrial  Research  in  this  city,  and  has  been  added  to  the  staff  of 
special  writers  of  the  Federated  Press,  whose  services  The  Call  presents 
exclusively  in  New  York.'  " 

In  the  index  to  Part  I  (page  38)  of  the  New  York  State 
Legislative  Investigation  on  Radicalism  appears  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Bruere,  Robert  W. 

Assistance  in  preparation  of  I.  W.  W.  pamphlet  page  1093 

Member  I.  W.  W.  defense  committee  "      1094 

Director  Bvu"eau  of  Industrial  Research  "      1121 

Mr.  Bruere's  official  position  and  title  as  printed  in  the 
official  handbook  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  is 
"Superintendent  of  the  Research  Division  of  the  Industrial 
Relations  Department.''    Thus  he  and  Dr.  Fisher  occupied 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       399 

the  two  most  important  executive  positions  in  the  de- 
partment which  originated  the  investigation  of  the  steel 
strike,  and  under  whose  authority  the  investigation  was 
conducted. 

Entirely  in  addition,  however,  to  the  fact  that  these  men 
were  at  the  head  of  this  department,  the  very  fact  that 
radicalism's  chief  interest  today  is  in  the  industrial  field 
made  it  inevitable  that  not  only  whatever  radical  elements 
there  were  within  the  Interchurch  Movement  itself  but 
that  radical  influences  in  genenal  should  concentrate  their 
attention  on  this  phase  of  Interchurch  activity.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  this  department  rapidly  became  the  center  of  a 
coterie  of  radicals  and  near-radicals  whose  influence,  and 
the  danger  of  that  influence  to  the  Interchurch  Movement, 
soon  became  a  subject  of  such  comment  and  concern  that 
Mr.  Raymond  Robins — certainly  himself  far  from  a  con- 
servative— ^made  the  strongest  representations  to  Inter- 
church officials  in  regard  to  this  danger  to  the  Industrial 
Department  and  the  Movement.  Mr.  Tyler  Dennett  also 
strongly  urged  in  a  memorandum  to  Dr.  S.  Earl  Taylor 
the  creation  of  a  special  "Department  of  Intellectual  Re- 
sources "  partly  for  the  purpose  of  offsetting  this  obvious 
tendency  of  the  Industrial  Department. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   STEEL   STRIKE   INVESTIGATION 

The  resolution  whose  adoption  led  to  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement's  Investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike  was  pre- 
sented by  Mr.  John  M.  Glenn,  director  of  the  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  and  a  sound  and  able  sociologist,  at  a  meeting 
called  by  the  Industrial  Relations  Department  of  the  Inter- 
church World  Movement  and  held  in  Hotel  Pennsylvania, 
New  York  City,  October  3,  1919. 

It  was  the  expressed  intention  of  the  Industrial  Relations 
Department  that  the  gathering  at  this  meeting,  which  was 
to  consider  industrial  questions,  should  be  representative  of 
employer  and  labor  and  public  interest.  Invitations  to  the 
meeting  were  sent  out  with  this  end  in  view.  An  un- 
fortunately large  niunber,  however,  of  business  men  who 
were  invited  to  represent  the  employer  interest,  and  of  the 
more  prominent  conservative  men  invited  to  represent  the 
public  interest,  did  not  find  time  to  attend  or  attended  only 
part  of  the  long  session.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  therefore,  the 
meeting  actually  consisted  of  a  preponderance  of  repre- 
sentatives of  labor  interest  and  of  the  less  conservative  repre- 
sentatives of  public  interest.  This  fact,  irrespective  of  any 
definite  plan  on  the  part  of  the  Industrial  Relations  Com- 
mittee, naturally  and  inevitably  influenced  the  proceedings 
at  the  meeting. 

Before  Mr.  Glenn's  motion  the  Steel  Strike  had  been  the 
subject  of  vigorous  debate.    Speeches  had  been  made, 

400 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       401 

depicting  in  vigorous  terms  the  alleged  horrors  and  in- 
justices of  the  strike,  and  condemning  the  United  States 
Steel  Corporation  for  its  general  policies  and  especially  its 
refusal  to  institute  the  proposed  ' '  collective  bargaining. "  A 
resolution  was  being  offered  which  included  the  demand  that 
the  steel  strike  be  investigated  and  reported  on  with  the 
apparent  thought  that  it  would  be  promptly  condemned. 
At  this  point  Dr.  Jeremiah  Jenks,  Research  Professor  of 
Government  and  Public  Administration  of  New  York 
University,  who  had  been  sitting  in  the  meeting  as  an  in- 
vited representative  of  public  interest,  was  leaving  the  hall. 
Realizing,  however,  the  spirit  of  the  resolution  just  offered 
and  the  obvious  belief  of  the  man  presenting  it  that  such  an 
investigation  could  be  made  and  a  verdict  returned  in  a  few 
hours  or  days,  Dr.  Jenks  paused  at  the  back  of  the  hall,  and 
when  it  appeared  that  the  resolution  of  this  nature  was  actu- 
ally about  to  be  put  to  a  vote,  he  obtained  recognition  from 
the  Chairman  and  stated  that  from  his  own  experience  he 
was  convinced  that  any  adequate  investigation  of  such  a 
widespread  social  movement  as  the  steel  strike  would  re- 
quire an  appropriation  of  many  thousands  of  dollars,  an 
adequate  force  of  experts  and  at  least  six  months'  time.  Dr. 
Jenks  further  stated  that  if  any  casual  investigation  were 
made  or  any  snap  judgment  passed  the  good  faith  of 
the  whole  Interchurch  World  Movement  would  be  sub- 
ject to  question  and  the  success  of  the  movement  itself 
jeopardized. 

The  proposer  of  the  former  motion  immediately  replied 
that  in  his  opinion  "it  didn't  require  either  much  money  or 
time  for  such  a  body  of  men  to  decide  a  moral  issue  such  as 
was  represented  in  the  Steel  Strike,"  and  he  repeated  his 
motion,  that  included  both  an  investigation  of  the  Steel 
Strike  and  a  condemnation  of  the  steel  companies.  '■ 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Mr.  Glenn,  the  Director  of  the 
Russell  Sage  Foundation,  offered  the  formal  resolution  that 

'  This  statement  has  been  carefully  reviewed  by  Dr.  Jenks  and  much 
of  it  is  in  his  own  phraseology. 

36 


402      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  meeting  should  authorize,  and  a  special  committee  be 
appointed  to  conduct,  an  investigation  of  the  steel  strike. 
This  resolution  was  put  to  a  viva  voce  vote  by  Bishop 
McConnell,  chairman  of  the  meeting,  and  declared 
unanimously  adopted. 

The  resolution  itself  was  according  to  Mr.  Glenn's  best 
recollection  substantially  as  follows : 

"  The  Industrial  Relations  Conference  recommends  that  a  committee 
be  appointed  by  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  to  investigate  the  Steel  Strike  and  other  current  industrial 
disturbances  from  the  standpoint  of  the  moral  and  ethical  principles 
involved."' 

In  the  Interchurch  World  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike 
(page  6,  lines  8-11)  it  is  stated  that  "The  Conference  re- 
jected a  resolution  condemning  one  party  to  the  strike  for 
refusing  to  adopt  the  principle  of  collective  bargaining." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  a  resolution  condemning  the 
steel  companies  for  not  accepting  collective  bargaining  had 
been  presented  before  Mr.  Glenn's  motion  and  had  been  put 
to  a  vote  and  declared  by  the  chairman  to  be  unanimously 
carried.  The  result  was  that  the  meeting  at  this  point  was 
officially  on  record  as  condemning  the  steel  companies  in 
advance  on  the  major  issue  of  the  steel  strike  which  was 
about  to  be  investigated. 

Mr.  John  H.  Walker,  President  of  the  Illinois  Federation 
of  Labor,  however,  immediately  arose  and  pointed  out  that 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  meeting  had  now  adopted  a 
resolution  to  investigate  the  steel  strike,  this  previous  reso- 
lution condemning  one  party  in  advance  before  the  in- 
vestigation might  tend  to  prejudice  public  opinion  as  to  the 
fairness  and  impartiality  of  the  investigation.  He,  there- 
fore, moved  that  the  resolution  condemning  the  companies 

'This  meeting  also  appointed  a  special  "Findings  Committee"  to 
draft  statements  and  definitions  of  these  "moral  and  ethical  princi- 
ples."   The  report  of  this  Committee  is  referred  to  later. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       403 

in  advance  be  rescinded  and  stricken  from  the  minutes. 
This  resolution  was  put  to  a  vote  and  carried.^ 

The  remainder  of  the  meeting  was  largely  taken  up  by  an 
extended  explanation  by  Mr.  Glenn  E.  Plumb  of  the 
"Plumb  Plan"  for  government  ownership  of  the  railroads. 
At  the  end  of  Mr.  Plumb's  discussion,  a  resolution  was  of- 
fered and  numerously  seconded  that  the  meeting  declare 
in  favor  of  the  Plumb  Plan  for  government  ownership  of 
the  railroads.  The  chairman,  however,  ruled  to  refer  this 
resolution  to  a  special  committee.  Many  objections  were 
made  to  this  ruling  which  insisted  that  the  resolution  be 
put  to  a  vote,  but  the  chairman  ruled  such  objectors  out 
of  order. 

In  considering  these  facts,  however,  it  must  be  carefully 
borne  in  mind  that  the  particular  composition  of  this  meet- 
ing was  not  principally  the  fault  of  the  Industrial  Relations 
Department  and  certainly  not  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement,  but  was  due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  many  of 
the  invited  representatives  of  other  interests  were  not  pres- 
ent. It  must  be  borne  in  mind  also  that  the  officers  of  the 
meeting  were  only  able  in  a  limited  way,  even  if  they 
wished,  to  control  the  actions  of  the  meeting. 

On  the  other  hand  no  honest  inquiry  into  conditions  sur- 

'  Mr.  Went  and  Mr.  Reynolds  state  that  there  is  no  question  about 
this  fact  and  it  was  their  particular  official  duty  to  keep  in  the  closest 
touch  with  what  went  on  at  this  meeting.  Mr.  Went  states  that  this 
fact  was  plainly  emphasized  in  his  notes  on  the  meeting  and  that  he  and 
Reynolds  talked  this  point  over  in  detail  immediately  after  the  meet- 
ing. Mr.  Bronson  Batchelor  entirely  corroborates  Mr.  Went  on  this. 
When  the  point  was  first  taken  up  with  Mr.  Reynolds,  he  refused  to 
commit  himself  at  all  until  he  knew  exactly  how  his  statement  was  to  be 
used.  After  he  had  read  the  entire  present  analysis,  he  fully  confirmed 
Mr.  Went's  and  Mr.  Batchelor's  statement.  He  stated  that  before  the 
meeting  he  had  been  asked  to  take  special  charge  of  the  publicity  work 
of  the  Industrial  Relations  Department  but  that  after  the  Hotel  Perm- 
sylvania  meeting  and  particularly  because  of  the  way  the  resolution 
first  to  condemn  the  steel  companies  and  then  to  investigate  the  steel 
strike  was  handled,  he  immediately  went  to  Dr.  Fisher,  discussed  the 
subject  with  him  and  resigned  his  connection.     Because  of  his  great 


404      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

rounding  the  acts  and  results  of  this  meeting  can  pass  by 
certain  further  facts  for  which  the  officers  of  the  Industrial 
Relations  Department  were  entirely  responsible. 

The  spirit  and  actions  of  any  meeting  are  naturally  very 
largely  influenced  by  the  speakers  at  the  meeting  and  partic- 
ular speakers  for  any  given  meeting  are  as  a  matter  of 
course  chosen  with  this  in  view.  Who  the  principal 
speakers  were  at  the  Hotel  Pennsylvania  meeting  was  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  the  Industrial  Relations  Department. 
In  addition  to  Mr.  Plumb  who  spoke  for  government  owner- 
ship of  the  railroads,  the  principal  speakers  were : 

Mr.  Julius  Hecker. 

Mr.  Hecker  was  during  part  of  the  war  a  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
worker  in  Europe.  But  after  a  full  hearing  when  he  was 
given  every  opportunity  to  clear  himself,  his  passports  were 
cancelled  by  the  State  Department  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
ordered  to  recall  him  and  the  Department  refused  him  the 
use  of  an  American  passport  for  further  travel  abroad  dur- 
ing the  war  because  of  his  pro-Bolshevistic  activities. 

Mr.  Hecker  said  at  a  weekly  conference  of  the  clergy  of 
the  Methodist  Church  held  at  150  Fifth  Avenue,  June  7, 
1919: 

"There  are  a  good  many  folks  and  some  Methodist  ministers  who 
oppose  Bolshevism  because  they  do  not  know  anything  about  it.  .  .  . 

interest,  however,  in  the  success  of  the  movement  as  a  whole,  he  ac- 
cepted the  position  of  Superintendent  of  the  Religious  Press  Division. 

In  regard  to  the  official  connection  of  these  gentlemen  with  the  Hotel 
Pennsylvania  Conference,  Mr.  Craig  says: 

"  Tyler  Dennett  was  in  personal  charge.  Reynolds  was  in  charge  of 
publicity  material  for  the  religious  press.  Craig  (he  himself)was  in  charge 
of  preparation  of  immediate  copy  for  the  daily  press.  Went,  Reynolds 
and  others  handled  the  running  report  from  the  conference  room. 
Chiquoine  handled  material  for  the  Press  Associations  (A. P., etc.)  No  one 
of  these  except  perhaps  Dennett  could  have  complete  personal  knowledge 
of  all  that  happened,  but  Went  and  Reynolds  probably  had  more  than 
the  others.  Batchelor  had  no  official  connection  whatever  with  the 
publicity  department  at  the  time.  If  he  was  there,  it  was  as  a 
spectator," 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       405 

We  in  the  United  States  are  not  yet  prepared  for  Bolshevism  and  there- 
fore we  will  be  obliged  to  handle  oar  rero/M/t(w  in  a  different  manner  .  .  . 
But  that  it  (our  revolution)  is  coming  there  is  no  doubt." 

This  quotation  is  typical  not  only  of  Mr.  Hecker's  speech 
at  this  meeting  as  it  was  quoted  and  analyzed  in  the 
National  Civic  Federation  Review,  July  10,  1920,  but  was 
typical  of  the  ideas  for  which  by  all  his  words  and  acts 
Mr.  Hecker  conspicuously  stood. 

In  the  index  of  the  New  York  Legislative  Investigation 
on  Radicalism  under  the  name  Hecker,  Dr.  Julius  F., 
appears  "Methodist  and  Revolutionary  Socialist,  pages 
1137-1138." 

John  Walker,  President  of  the  Illinois  Federation  of  Labor. 

Mr.  Walker's  closest  official  associate  was  Mr.  John  Fitz- 
patrick,  chairman  of  the  special  committee  which  organized 
and  conducted  the  Steel  Strike. 

Mr.  Frederick  C.  Howe. 

Mr.  Howe  was  former  Commissioner  of  Immigration  at 
the  port  of  New  York.  After  wide  newspaper  criticism  be- 
cause of  his  unauthorized  releasing  of  radicals  held  for 
deportation  by  the  Department  of  Justice,  and  a  Con- 
gressional investigation  after  which  he  was  bitterly  con- 
demned on  the  floor  of  the  House  by  members  of  both 
parties  for  neglect  of  duty  and  extreme  radical  activity  and  a 
resolution  offered  to  withhold  his  salary  he  resigned.  (See 
Record  of  the  66th  Congress,  pages  1522,  1523.) 

Mr.  Howe  is  also  a  correspondent  of  the  Federated  Press 
which  will  be  described  later  and  he  is  also  listed  as  a  well- 
known  radical  by  the  New  York  Legislative  Report  on 
Radicalism.* 

'  "There  were  also  one  or  two  mildly  conservative  speakers;  I  forget 
their  names  but  it  might  be  well  to  mention  them."  S.  W. 

"Give  full  list  of  invited  speakers."    J.  W.  J. 

"Why  not  give  a  full  list  of  makers  of  such  speeches?  "    H.  C.  R. 

None  of  these  gentlemen  however  could  furnish  such  a  list  and  the 
author  has  been  unable  to  obtain  it  elsewhere. 


406      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

These  opinions  and  acts  of  all  these  speakers  were  con- 
spicuous and  widely  known  and  could  not  but  have  been 
known  to  the  Department  of  Industrial  Relations  when 
it  invited  them  to  speak  before  the  Hotel  Pennsylvania 
meeting.  They  were  of  course  known  to  Mr.  Robert  W. 
Bruere,  "Superintendent  of  Research"  of  this  Department. 

However,  the  steel  strike  investigation  was  not  in  the 
hands  of  this  meeting;  nor  was  the  committee  to  investigate 
the  steel  strike  appointed  by  this  meeting. 

To  what  extent  if  any,  therefore,  the  type  of  speakers 
who  were  officially  chosen  to  address  this  meeting  and  the 
actions  and  the  spirit  of  this  meeting  itself  can  be  regarded 
as  being  significant  remains  to  be  determined  in  relation 
with  other  facts  as  to  the  investigation  and  the  Report. 

In  addition  to  passing  the  resolution  to  investigate  the 
steel  strike  the  Hotel  Pennsylvania  meeting  also  appointed 
a  special  "Findings  Committee"  which  was  to  draft  a 
statement  as  to  the  "Moral  Principles  Involved  in  Indus- 
trial Relations."  After  a  very  extensive  debate  and  the 
cooperation  of  other  committees,  a  set  of  "Findings"  was 
presented  and  accepted  by  this  meeting.  The  seemingly 
radical  nature  of  many  sections  of  these  "Findings"  which, 
though  in  vague  terms,  condemn  the  present  industrial 
system,  and  recommend  various  notorious  radical  panaceas, 
created  the  widest  discussion  in  the  meeting  and  in  the  news- 
papers at  the  time.  Dr.  Jenks,  however,  who  was  called 
into  consultation  by  this  "Findings  Committee"  says  that 
the  members  of  the  Committee  themselves  did  not  interpret 
certain  sections  of  these  Findings  as  many  others  inter- 
preted them  and  as  they  are  at  least  plainly  capable  of  being 
interpreted.  Mr.  Craig  and  Mr.  Went  both  strongly  em- 
phasize that  no  such  committee  could,  as  these  "Findings" 
assume  to  do,  officially  commit  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement.  The  fact,  however,  that  these  "Findings," 
in  a  somewhat  modified  form,  were  later  published  over  the 
official  imprint  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  as 
Pamphlet  No.  178  II,  10  November,  1919,  and  are  exten- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       407 

sively  reproduced  on  page  44A  of  the  official  handbook  of 
the  Interchurch  World  Movement  is  admitted  by  Mr. 
Craig  to  be  an  official  "ratification  of  them  in  fact  if  not 
precisely  in  law." 

On  page  332,  Volume  II,  the  Interchiirch  Report  in  dis- 
cussing the  authorization  of  its  attempted  mediation  with 
Judge  Gary,  quotes: 

"The  Findings  Committee  recommends  to  the  Industrial  Relations 
Department  .  .  .  that  it  make  careful  and  thoroughgoing  investigation 
of  the  strikes  in  the  steel  industry  .  .  .  likewise  that  the  Department 
be  requested  ...  to  use  their  offices  in  trying  to  bring  about  a  joint 
conference  and  a  settlement  of  this  dispute  by  mutual  agreement." 

This  certainly  indicates  that  the  actual  Commissioners 
of  Investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike  considered  that  they 
held  a  direct  mandate  from  the  Hotel  Pennsylvania  meeting 
and  its  "Findings  Committee." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   SPECIAL    "COMMISSION   OF    INQUIRY"    WHICH   INVESTI- 
GATED AND  REPORTED  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

Immediately  after  the  Hotel  Pennsylvania  meeting  at 
which  the  resolution  to  investigate  the  steel  strike  was 
adopted,  there  was  appointed  by  the  Executive  Committee 
of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  a  special  "Com- 
mission of  Inquiry"  which  was  to  have  direct  charge  of 
investigating  the  steel  strike  and  preparing  the  Strike 
Report. 

The  fact  that  this  special  "Commission  of  Inquiry"  thus 
had  direct  charge  of  the  Steel  Strike  Investigation  and  the 
writing  of  the  Steel  Report  and  that  they  signed  the  report 
as  members  of  the  Commission  and  as  individuals  un- 
doubtedly makes  it  most  pertinent  to  inquire  closely  into 
its  personnel. 

Facts  and  quotations  carefully  verified  which  tend  to 
show  the  fundamental  point  of  view  of  each  member  of  this 
commission  are  summarized  herewith  in  connection  with 
the  name  of  each  commissioner. 

The  point  already  emphasized,  however,  must  be  care- 
fully borne  in  mind,  that  facts  in  regard  to  the  personal 
point  of  view  of  the  investigators  can  only  be  regarded  as  of 
problematical  value  and  can  have  no  real  weight  except  in 
connection  with  facts  as  to  other  dominant  influences  in  the 
investigation  and  preparation  of  the  report. 

"The  Commission  of  Inquiry  "  consisted  of: 

408 


I  REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       409 

Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell  (Methodist),  Chairman. 

Bishop  McConnell  when  introduced  before  the  Hotel 
Pennsylvania  meeting  by  Dr.  (now  Bishop)  Fred  B.  Fisher, 
Director  of  the  Industrial  Relations  Department,  was  re- 
ferred to  as  "that  strange  combination,  a  radical  Bishop." 

In  Bishop  McConnell's  address  to  that  meeting,  he  is 
quoted  in  the  Christian  Advocate  (November  13, 1919)  report 
on  his  speech  as  saying, 

"Whatever  we  do,  we  must  keep  alive  in  the  church  the  spirit  of 
prophetic  radicalism  ...  a  man  had  better  say  looo  wild  things  and 
get  some  good  truth  uttered,  etc." 

In  connection  with  which  statement  the  Advocate  said: 

"'To  say  a  thousand  wild  things  in  order  to  get  some  good  truth  ut- 
tered '  will  seem  to  most  people  an  entirely  inadequate  justification  of 
the  liberty  of  prophesying  which  the  agitators  now  so  copiously  enjoy." 

These  quotations  are  in  no  sense  chosen  for  emphasis  be- 
cause of  the  appearance  of  the  word  "radical"  but  because 
they  briefly  epitomize  the  whole  spirit  of  his  speech  as  sum- 
marized and  commented  on  in  an  official  publication  of 
his  own  denomination.  Moreover,  many  of  Bishop  Mc- 
Connell's fellow- workers,  all  officially  connected  with  the 
Interchurch  World  Movement  and  all  of  them  ostensibly 
friendly  to  him,  speak  of  his  point  of  view  in  terms,  the 
mildest  of  which  are  that  he  is  "extremely  liberal"  or  that 
he  is  "one  of  our  most  extreme  thinkers." 

Bishop  McConnell's  strong  leaning  towards  radicalism 
is,  moreover,  quite  plain  from  a  study  of  his  own  published 
works. 

His  chapter  on  "  IndividuaHsm "  in  his  book,  Theology 
and  Public  Opinion  (1920)  makes  it  clear  that  he  does  not 
wholly  accept  the  basic  philosophy  of  socialism.  In  a 
number  of  sections  in  his  book.  Democratic  Christianity,  he 
defends  Socialism  from  the  charge  of  being  basical  atheistic 
and  refers  to  those  who  support  the  present  "capitalistic" 
system  as  opponents.     He  does  not  declare  plainly  in  favor 


410      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

of  socialism  and  states  that  socialism  will  have  to  be  "Amer- 
icanized" before  it  can  become  acceptable  to  America,  but 
these  chapters  leave  no  doubt  that  he  is  at  least  a  very 
"Near"  socialist. 

He  concludes  this  discussion  with  the  statement  (page  54) 
that : 

"In  the  march  towards  the  larger  democracy  the  church  is  more 
likely  to  sympathize  with  such  movements  as  the  British  Labor  Party." 

It  will  be  remembered  also  that  the  Interchurch  Report 
points  frequently  to  labor  conditions  abroad  as  an  example 
to  American  industry. 

The  general  principles  of  the  British  labor  party  are,  of 
course,  well  known. 

This  party  strongly  supported  the  striking  British  coal 
miners  who  declared  that  if  the  government  did  not  yield 
to  their  demands  they  would  destroy  the  British  coal  mines 
and  ruin  the  country  with  themselves,  and  whose  official 
leaders  openly  stated:  " If  we  go  down  to  defeat  the  Nation 
will  go  with  us." 

Although  this  party  has  recently,  after  its  investigation 
commission  visited  Russia,  repudiated  Sovietism  as  de- 
veloped under  Lenine,  it  had  previously  strongly  supported 
Russian  Sovietism  and  still  definitely  maintains  socialistic 
views  of  only  a  slightly  milder  character. 

In  fact  Foster  spends  pages  263,  264  and  265  of  The  Great 
Steel  Strike  in  showing  that  the  British  Trade  Union  Move- 
ment, of  which  the  British  Labor  Party  is  merely  the  politi- 
cal manifestation,  is  a  model  to  the  whole  radical  world  of 
effective  radicalism. 

Bishop  McConnell  who  holds  and  recommends  such 
principles  to  the  American  Protestant  Church  was  not  only 
the  chairman  of  the  Commission  of  Investigation  of  the 
Steel  Strike  but  by  common  consent  its  most  influential 
member. 

Dr.    McConnell    has   recently    been    transferred   from 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       411 

Denver  and  made  Bishop  of  the  Pittsburgh  district  which 
includes  the  great  industrial  section  of  western  Pennsylvania. 

Dr.  Daniel  A.  Poling  (United  Evangelical),  Vice-Chairman 
Dr.  Poling  is  associate  president  of  the  International 
Society  of  Christian  Endeavor  and  evening  preacher  at  the 
Marble  Collegiate  Church  on  Upper  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York  City.  In  addition  to  his  membership  on  the  Com- 
mission, Dr.  Poling  was  a  member  of  the  General  Committee 
of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement.  Dr.  Poling  had  been 
formerly  regarded  as  a  "Moderate"  in  his  economic  views, 
but  after  Dr.  Fisher  retired  and  he  became  active  head  of 
the  Industrial  Department  it  is  generally  stated  that  he 
seemed  to  become  entirely  committed  to  the  point  of  view 
and  policies  represented  by  Robert  W.  Bruere  and  his 
Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  group. 

Mr.  George  W.  Coleman  (Baptist). 

Mr.  Coleman  is  head  of  the  Open  Forum  in  Boston  and 
has  long  been  one  of  those  who  most  strongly  advocated 
that  the  Church  should  make  a  more  definite  and  special 
appeal  to  the  laboring  classes.  Mr.  Coleman  himself,  in  a 
speech  before  the  Congregational  Club  of  Worcester  (Mass.) 
on  March  14,  1921,  said: 

"To  me  one  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  this  strike  as  a  man  in- 
terested in  the  church  .  .  .  what  a  burden  it  has  been  upon  me  many  a  time 
to  find  everywhere  the  working  man's  organization  looking  upon  the 
church  as  prejudicial  to  his  interests,  when  I  know  what  was  in  the 
hearts  of  the  ministers.  That  is  the  attitude  for  years  which  labor  has 
had  toward  the  church.  When  I  was  called  to  New  York  to  attend  a 
special  meeting  of  the  steel  strike  commission,  to  listen  to  Mr.  Fitz- 
patrick,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  strike,  I  was  amazed  when  I  got  to  the 
office  of  the  Interchurch  Commission,  to  have  that  man  sit  down  and 
tell  us  the  message  he  brought  from  24  International  Unions.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  strikers  were  men  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 
Churches,  and  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  himself  was  a  devout  Roman  Catholic; 
yet  he  came  representing  all  those  men  in  their  great  struggle  when 
everything  they  valued  in  life  was  at  stake,  they  came  to  a  body  of 


412      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Protestant  Churchmen  and  said  through  this  representative  of  theirs, 
'Gentlemen,  I  am  commissioned  in  behalf  of  the  strikers  to  put  our 
case  in  your  hands  without  any  limitation  or  reservation.'  ....  I 
said.  This  is  a  Blessed  day  I  have  come  to  see,  when  a  great  body  of 
strikers  have  come  to  have  enough  confidence  in  a  body  of  churchmen  to 
trust  us  to  do  the  right  thing." 

Dr.  Nicholas  Van  Der  Pyl  (Congregationalist). 

Dr.  Van  Der  Pyl's  views  on  economic  and  social  questions 
do  not  appear  to  be  a  matter  of  printed  record. 

Dr.  Alva  W.  Taylor  (Disciple)  is  stated  by  a  close  asso- 
ciate to  be  a  liberal  in  his  theological  views  but  a  moderate 
in  his  views  on  economic  questions. 

Dr.  John  McDowell  (Presbyterian). 

Dr.  McDowell  is  a  preacher  of  the  Evangelical  type  of 
vital  appeal  and  power.  He  is  a  strong  admirer  of  Dwight 
L.  Moody,  the  great  American  Evangelist  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, and  has  written  an  effective  appreciation  of  Mr. 
Moody's  life  and  work.  Dr.  McDowell  in  his  own  statement 
of  his  economic  and  social  point  of  view,  made  expressly 
for  the  present  analysis,  said : 

"I  read  my  Christianity  into  my  economics,  not  my  economics  into 
my  Christianity.  The  Social  question  as  I  see  it  from  the  Christian 
point  of  view  is  not  one  of  system,  it  is  one  of  spirit.  It  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  method  but  of  motive.  The  primary  need  therefore  of  the  Social 
world  and  the  industrial  world  is  the  Christian  spirit  in  all  hiunan  rela- 
tions." 

As  to  radicalism  he  said : 

"  I  welcome  to  this  country  any  man  who  wants  to  enjoy  our  freedom 
and  our  opportunities.  I  should  make  it  possible  for  him  to  know  our 
ideals  and  our  institutions.  But  if  such  a  man  after  entering  our  land 
and  having  the  opportunity  of  knowing  our  ideals  and  institutions  as 
embodied  in  our  Constitution  persists  in  denying  our  ideals  and  defying 
our  institutions,  I  am  in  favor  of  deporting  him  at  once.  We  must  make 
every  individual  in  this  land  understand  that  this  is  a  government  of 
law  and  lawful  processes." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       413 

Mrs.  Fred  Smith  Bennett,  Chairman  of  the  Home  Missions 
Council,  Presbyterian  Church. 

Advisory  Members. 

"Those  who  did  not  take  active  part  on  the  Investigation 
but  signed  the  Report  after  examination  of  the  evidence." 

Bishop  Melvin  Bell. 

Bishop  Charles  D.  Williams  (Episcopal). 

Bishop  Williams  has  been  generally  spoken  of  as  the  most 
definitely  radical  member  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry. 
Statements  from  his  sermons  have  been  frequently  widely 
quoted  in  the  newspapers  as  extremely  radical.  He  made 
statements  in  a  sermon  in  St.  John's  Cathedral  in  the 
spring  of  1 92 1  which  were  not  only  emphasized  by  the  news- 
papers as  extremely  radical  but  which  the  present  Bishop  of 
New  York  felt  it  necessary  to  repudiate  in  a  public  state- 
ment the  following  Sunday  as  not  representative  of  the 
attitude  of  the  Episcopal  Church. 

For  these  reasons  particular  attention  has  been  given 
to  the  economic  point  of  view  of  Bishop  Williams  and  a 
large  number  of  his  public  sermons  and  writings  have  been 
carefully  reviewed.  In  a  sermon  delivered  a  number  of 
years  ago  on  the  subject,  The  Gospel  of  Democracy  in 
which  he  particularly  stated  at  length  his  point  of  view  in 
regard  to  modern  economic  subjects,  and  in  several  other 
sermons,  Bishop  Williams  made  such  statements  as  the 
following : 

"That  class  consciousness  hinders  every  effort  for  better 
things."  Yet  class  consciousness  is  the  very  foundation  of 
all  radicalism. 

"Socialism  would  fix  every  particle  immovable  in  one 
dead  level,"  he  states  and  adds :  "  I  cherish  no  fool's  vision  of 
an  impossible  society  wherein  everybody  shall  stand  upon 
one  absolute  dead  level  of  dreary  uniformity."  This  con- 
stitutes a  definite  condemnation  of  a  basic  doctrine 
of  socialism. 


414      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Under  the  heading,  "What  is  the  duty  and  obHgation  of 
the  working  man?"  Bishop  WilHams  says: 

"Do  you  ever  use  the  vast  power  which  your  (labor)  organization 
gives  you  ruthlessly,  lawlessly,  tyrannously ,  simply  to  advance  your  own 
interests  at  the  expense  of  right  and  justice?  .  .  .  Do  you  .  .  . 
skimp  yotu"  job,  do  dishonest  or  slovenly  work,  when  the  eye  of  the  fore- 
man is  not  directly  upon  you,  or  when  the  demand  for  labor,  in  times  of 
prosperity  is  so  great  that  you  are  reasonably  sure  of  yovu"  job?  .  .  . 
Do  you  do  efficient  service  only  when  the  difficulty  of  getting  and  keep- 
ing a  job  makes  it  particularly  prudent  to  make  a  good  record?  If  so 
then  you  are  just  as  much  a  sinner  again;st  the  Christian  ideal  of  society 
as  the  robber  baron  on  Wall  Street." 

Certainly  inefficiency  of  production,  as  widely  practised  by 
labor  and  indirect  sabotage  as  practised  by  radicals,  could 
hardly  be  more  vigorously  condemned. 

Bishop  Williams  bitterly  condemns  the  "idle  rich"  and 
the  "four  hundred"  but  equally  sternly  condemns  the 
"half-baked,  ill-trained  enthusiast  or  fanatic,"  which  he 
goes  on  to  describe  in  terms  which  make  his  reference  to 
average  radicals  entirely  clear.  He  condemns  "industrial 
parasites"  and  "idle  holders  of  privilege"  but  continues: 

"  (society)  could  not  for  a  moment  do  without  its  producers  whether 
they  are  .    .    .  captains  of  indmtry  or  horny-handed  toilers." 

On  the  other  hand  through  a  period  of  years  Bishop 
Williams  has  been  denouncing  our  whole  industrial  sys- 
tem, not  merely  for  its  incidental  failures  or  weaknesses 
which  most  right-minded  men  see  and  which  the  wise 
leaders  of  industry  itself  have  long  been  making  serious 
efforts  to  correct,  but  as  a  system  that  is  in  itself  "mani- 
festly uniust  and  intolerable,"  whose  chief  characteristic 
as  Bishop  Williams  seems  to  see  it  is  that  the  wealth  pro- 
duced by  the  workers  is  "largely  absorbed  by  a  lot  of  social 
parasites." 

Formerly  Bishop  Williams  states  that  he  was  a  Single 
Taxer  and  the  basis  on  which  he  would  inherently  change 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       415 

the  modem  industrial  system  was  doubtless  the  theories  of 
Hemy  George. 

In  more  recent  speeches  and  sermons  as  they  have  been 
publicly  quoted,  Bishop  Williams  seems  to  have  become 
even  more  convinced  of  the  inherent  and  basic  injustice 
and  wrongness  of  our  whole  industrial  system  and  demands 
that  that  system  be  changed  by  the  "democratization  of 
industry."  He  said  in  a  sermon  in  Grace  Church,  New 
York  City,  on  July  20,  1920: 

"We  have  gone  through  all  the  stages  of  owner  and  slave,  lord  and 
serf,  employer  and  employees.  The  next  step  is  a  co-partnership  con- 
sisting of  employer,  employee  and  the  public,  the  public  coming  in  to 
regtdate  both  and  see  that  justice  is  done  and  that  the  consiuner  does 
not  suffer." 

Whether  or  not  this  statement  is  radical  depends  on  the 
definition  of  the  terms  he  uses — and  he  does  not  define  them. 
Judge  Gary  himself  has  encouraged  100,000  of  his  employees 
to  buy  stock  in  their  company  and  thus  become  co-partners 
in  the  steel  industry;  and  he  has  at  least  several  times  re- 
ferred to  such  stockholding  employees  as  "partners  in  the 
industry."  Also  Judge  Gary,  the  year  previous  to  this 
sermon  of  Bishop  Williams,  publicly  stated  his  belief  that 
the  public,  through  a  special  governmental  commission, 
should  regulate  both  the  employer  and  employee  in  order 
to  see  that  justice  is  done  to  all. 

In  this  same  sermon  Bishop  Williams  bitterly  denounces 
Bolshevism  as  "the  enemy  of  democracy." 

Bishop  Williams  may  have  the  same  point  of  view  as  all 
radicals  in  his  overemphasis  of  the  weakness  of  the  modem 
industrial  system  and  his  failure  to  realize  that  many  of 
those  weaknesses  are  due  not  to  the  system  but  to  inherent 
weaknesses  in  average  human  nature.  Unquestionably  he 
is  also  entirely  unfair,  and  uninformed,  when  he  insists 
continually  on  laying  most  of  the  troubles  of  industry  to 
the  "social  parasites,"  "the  idle  holders  of  privilege"  and 
"the reactionaries "  which  beseems  to  feel  are  the  type  of 


4i6       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

men  who  are  largely  in  control  of  American  industry  today. 
The  frequent  expression  of  such  a  point  of  view  in  immoder- 
ate language,  doubtless  often  sounds  like  radicalism — may, 
according  to  the  definition  put  on  his  terms,  border  on  radi- 
calism, and  coming  from  such  an  able  religious  leader  is 
undoubtedly  grist  to  the  mills  of  radicalism.  But  no  one  who 
fairly  analyzes  Bishop  Williams'  chief  public  utterances,  in- 
cluding his  definite  strong  denunciations  of  socialism,  and 
Bolshevism — the  strongest  condemnation  of  class  conscious- 
ness, sabotage,  of  loafing  on  the  job,  and  of  using  labor's 
organized  power  for  selfish  class  interest — can  fairly  classify 
Bishop  Williams  as  an  economic  "radical"  as  that  term  is 
used  and  meant  today. 

Bishop  Williams'  extreme  and  doubtless  unwarranted 
prejudice  against  what  he  calls  the  "  reactionaryism  of  the 
employer  class"  and  his  belief  in  the  inherent  injustice  and 
wrongness  of  our  modern  industrial  system  may  very 
possibly  have  prejudiced  his  point  of  view  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  steel  strike.  But  his  expressed  views  as  a  whole 
clearly  indicate  that  he  would  not  knowingly  approve  the 
economic  theories  which  are  actually,  though  covertly, 
advanced  by  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  and  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  he  should  knowingly  approve  the  types  and 
methods  of  many  arguments  there  used  to  advance  those 
theories. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"staff  of  field  investigators"  and  "technical 
experts" 

The  Interchurch  Report  begins  its  Foreword  by  stating: 

"  This  volume  presents  the  summary  of  industrial  facts  as  drawn  from 
all  data  before  the  Commission  and  adopted  as  the  Report  of  the  Commis- 
sion.  .    .    . " 

"Another  volume  will  be  required  for  the  supporting  reports  and  ex- 
hibits by  the  staff  of  field  investigators:  George  Soule,  David  Saposs, 
Miss  Marian  D.  Savage,  M.  Carl  Wisehart,  and  Robert  Littell.  Heber 
Blankernhorn  had  charge  of  the  Field  work  and  later  acted  as  Secretary 
to  the  Commission." 

On  page  6  it  says : 

"Those  parts  of  the  evidence  obtained  directly  by  the  Commission 
were  secured  through  personal  observation  and  through  Open  Hearings 
held  in  Pittsburg  in  November,  supplemented  by  inspection  trips  in 
Western  Permsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois.  More  technical 
and  detailed  data  were  obtained  by  a  staff  of  investigators  working 
under  a  field  director  from  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  of  New 
York.  Other  evidence  was  obtained  directly  by  the  Bureau  of  Industrial 
Research,  by  the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  in  Washington,  by  a 
firm  of  consulting  engineers  (unnamed)  and  by  various  other  organiza- 
tions and  technical  experts  (unnamed)  working  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Commission." 

In  its  Foreword  to  Volume  II  the  Interchurch  Report 
says: 

"  The  field  investigation  lasted  from  the  second  week  in  October,  1919, 
tothefirstof  February,  1920.  .    .   .     In  January ,  February  and  March 

27  417 


4i8      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  Commission  from  its  own  records  and  the  investigators'  reports  formur 
lated  the  Report  on  the  steel  strike.   .    .    . 

"This  second  volume  is  the  work  of  the  investigators  first  submitted 
to  the  Commission  during  the  investigation,  then  resubmitted  for  revisi6n 
to  the  members  of  the  Commission  from  December,  1920  to  May,  1921 
and  ordered  printed  as  accepted  with  the  introductory  notes  of  the 
Secretary  as  Editor,  Primary  responsibility  for  the  present  Report 
(second  Volume)  rests  with  the  signing  investigators;  the  Commission 
holds  itself  responsible  for  the  use  made  of  these  reports  in  preparing  the 
Steel  Report  (ist  Vol.).    .    .    . 

".  .  .  As  in  the  case  of  the  first  volume  the  supplementary  reports 
were  made  with  the  technical  assistance  of  the  Bureau  of  Industrial 
Research.  To  members  of  the  Bureau  the  Commission  is  further 
indebted  for  seeing  this  Volume  through  the  press." 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  then  was 
"formulated"  by  the  Commission  from  its  own  records  and 
the  investigators'  reports.  It  is  "the  summary  of  industrial 
facts  as  drawn  from  all  data  before  the  Commission.  The 
Commission  holds  itself  responsible  for  the  use  made  of  these 
reports  in  preparing  the  Steel  Report."  This  all  plainly 
indicates  the  degree  to  which  the  Interchurch  Report  is 
based  on  the  work  of  these  "outside  field  investigators  and 
technical  assistants." 

Again,  "those  parts  of  the  evidence  secured  directly  by 
the  Commission  were  obtained  through  open  hearings  in 
November"  and  "by  inspection  trips  in  western  Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois." 

The  Interchurch  Report  itself  states  that  the  Commission 
began  "formulating  the  Report  in  January."  The  Com- 
mission was  engaged  at  least  from  November  27th  to  De- 
cember 5th  in  attempting  to  mediate  with  Judge  Gary  and 
the  Commission  seems  to  have  been  in  touch  with  Judge 
Gary  for  at  least  a  week  after  this.  The  Commission  or  its 
members  are  otherwise  mentioned  as  being  especially  oc- 
cupied in  other  various  ways  during  this  period.  In  other 
words  while  the  Field  Investigations  are  specifically  stated 
to  have  lasted  from  October  till  February,  the  Interchurch 
Commission  itself  merely  held  open  hearings  in  November 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       419 

— ^for  about  two  weeks.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the 
great  bulk  of  the  data  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  was 
based  was  gathered  by  the  outside  Field  Investigators. 

The  Interchurch  Report  itself  says  (page  9):  "The 
statements  and  affidavits  of  500  steel  workers  carefully  com- 
pared and  tested,  constitute  the  rock  bottom  of  the  findings." 

Ten  of  these  statements  and  affidavits  appear  on  pages 
213  to  218  of  the  Interchurch  Report.  They  are  the  only 
group  appearing  in  the  main  volume.  The  dates  range 
from  February  to  August,  191 9,  from  two  to  nine  months 
before  the  Interchurch  investigation  was  even  proposed. 

Forty-one  such  statements  and  affidavits  are  reproduced 
on  pages  179  to  219  of  Volume  II.  These  are,  except  for  a 
few  isolated  statements  all  the  "rock  bottom  statements 
and  affidavits"  which  appear  in  this  volume.  Of  these  41, 
16  are  affidavits  and  25  unsworn  statements.  Of  the  16 
affidavits,  9  show  notary's  dates  of  October  3d  or  earlier — 
before  the  Interchurch  investigation  was  even  proposed. 
The  other  7  affidavits  all  show  notary's  dates  of  October 
nth  or  earlier — before  the  first  Interchurch  investigator 
was  sent  into  the  field. 

Of  the  25  unsworn  statements — which,  however,  the 
Interchurch  Report  itself  continually  refers  to  as '  'affidavits' ' 
— 1 1  show  dates  of  September  30th  or  earlier — before  the 
Interchurch  investigation  was  proposed,  and  4  show  dates 
of  October  8th  or  9th — before  the  first  Interchurch  investi- 
gator was  sent  into  the  field.  Ten  statements,  however, 
show  dates  of  October  17th  to  November  nth,  during 
which  time  "the  staff  of  field  investigators "  was  in  the  field. 
But  of  these  10  only  3 — numbers  27,  28  and  38  in  the  order 
they  are  published — show  dates  after  November  ist  when 
the  Interchurch  Commission  itself  went  into  the  field.  Two 
of  these  statements  are  especially  emphasized  to  have  been 
made  to  "Commissioner  Coleman." 

Of  the  "500  rock  bottom"  affidavits  and  statements 
then,  on  which  the  Interchurch  Report  states  it  is  based,  as 
far  as  they  are  published,  these  3  are  all  which  the  Inter- 


420      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

church  Commissioners  themselves  could  have  been  in  any 
way  directly  responsible  for.  All  the  actual  affidavits  pub- 
lished and  all  the  other  statements  were  either  collected  by 
the  outside  investigators  or  came  through  some  other 
source.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  already  explained,  they  were 
practically  all  borrowed  from  the  propaganda  affidavits  and 
statements  previously  collected  by  or  for  James  H.  Maurer, 
the  notorious  radical  labor  leader  who  signed  himself  to  the 
Soviet  authorities  as  "representing  300  radical  groups  in 
42  states." 

Again  of  the  most  important  chapters  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself,  those  in  regard  to  hours  and  wages  consist 
largely  of  "statistics"  or  are  built  largely  on  "statistics" 
and  similar  "technical  data " ;  and  as  the  chapters  on  "Bol- 
shevism" and  "Organizing  for  Conference"  show  the  most 
intimate  technical  knowledge  of  radicalism,  labor  politics 
and  similar  highly  specialized  information,  it  must  be  pre- 
sumed under  the  circumstances  that  the  basis  for  all  these 
chapters  was  largely  furnished  by  these  outside  "technical 
assistants."  As  to  the  chapter  on  "Social  Consequences" 
considerable  portions  consist  of  long  verbatim  quotations 
from  sections  of  the  2nd  Volume  which  are  specifically 
signed  by  these  outside  investigators.  In  other  words, 
aside  from  the  Introduction  and  Conclusion,  and  possibly 
one  chapter,  the  whole  Interchurch  Report  seems  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  to  be  chiefly  based  on  the  con- 
tributions of  the  outside  "investigators"  and  "technical 
experts." 

The  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism 
specifically  credits  the  Interchurch  Report  to  these  outside 
assistants.  The  Continent,  the  leading  Presbyterian  de- 
nominational periodical,  credits  the  whole  document  to  the 
outside  "technical  assistants"  and  says  that  to  call  it  a 
Church  investigation  "was  and  is  preposterous." 

When  the  strike  leaders,  according  to  Mr.  Foster  in  his 
Great  Steel  Strike  (page  157),  became  so  impressed  by  the 
scientific  methods  manifested  by  the  Interchurch  Investi- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       421 

gation  that  they  decided  to  have  the  Interchurch  Movement 
try  to  mediate  the  strike  with  Judge  Gary,  Mr.  Foster 
states  that  the  arrangements  were  made,  not  with  the  Com- 
missioners but  with  Mr.  Blankenhorn.  The  Interchurch 
Mediation  Committee's  report  back  to  the  strike  leaders 
after  the  attempt  at  mediation  is  signed  by  Mr.  Blanken- 
horn. Moreover  throughout  the  many  references  vari- 
ously made  by  the  strike  leaders  to  the  Interchurch  In- 
vestigation, such  references  were  almost  invariably  made 
to  members  of  the  outside  body  of  assistants  rather  than 
to  the  Commissioners  of  Inquiry. 

In  other  words  all  the  evidence — that  in  the  Interchurch 
Report  itself,  as  well  as  that  from  outside  sources, — points 
so  conclusively  to  the  fact  that  these  outside  investigators 
and  "technical  experts"  played  such  an  important,  if  not 
leading,  part  in  the  preparation  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike — the  further  evidence  yet  to  be  con- 
sidered shows  that  they  played  such  a  dominant  part  in  the 
preparation  of  the  Interchurch  Report — that  it  is  corre- 
spondingly important  to  inquire  in  detail  as  to  just  who 
and  what  these  outside  "investigators"  and  "technical 
experts"  were. 

The  "staff  of  field  investigators"  is  stated  in  the  Intro- 
duction to  the  Interchurch  Report  to  have  consisted  of : 

Mr.  George  Soule. 

In  its  Foreword  to  Volume  II,  on  page  v,  the  Interchurch 
Report  says: 

"George  Soule,  Editor  and  writer  on  industrial  research  for  many 
publications;  author  of  War  Department  Report  on  Industrial  Service 
Section  of  Ordinance  Department;  co-author  with  J.  M.  Budish  of  The 
New  Unionism." 

This  statement  by  the  Interchurch  Report,  however,  fails 
to  indicate  the  nature  of  Mr.  Soule's  interest  in  "industrial 
research,"  or  the  type  of  the  "many  publications "  for  which 
he  has  been  editor  and  contributor,  or  the  lines  along  which 


422      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

he  has  written.  It  does  not  suggest  that  his  book,  The  New 
Unionism,  which  has  already  been  extensively  quoted  in 
the  present  Analysis  is  a  glorification  of  the  Amalgamated 
Clothing  Workers  and  their  new  type  of  radical  unionism 
to  which  the  Third  International  of  Moscow  has  recently 
turned  over  the  leadership  in  the  American  radical  move- 
ment. It  gives  no  hint  that  Mr.  Soule's  writings  consist 
almost  exclusively  of  radical  propaganda,  often  of  the  most 
open  and  pronounced  kind.  Mr.  Soule's  periodical  con- 
tributions for  1920 — the  year  the  Interchurch  Report  was 
written  and  published — were,  as  far  as  they  can  be  dis- 
covered, in  full  as  follows : 

(i.)  "Liberal  Tactics  Again."  New  Republic,  March 
3,  IQ20.  This  is  an  impassioned  appeal,  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  to  the  public,  in  which  Mr.  Soule  in  addition  to 
insisting  that — 

"  There  is  no  solution  of  the  Railroad  problem  but  something  like  the 
Plumb  plan.  There  is  no  solution  of  the  coal  problem  but  nationaliza- 
tion of  the  mines," 

urges  votes  for  the  Farmer-Labor  party. 

(2.)  "The  Railway  Men  Get  Action."  Nation, 
April  24,  IQ20 — ^which  ends  as  follows: 

"Disillusionment  with  political  action  (i.e.,  the  need  for 
industrial  action),  sudden,  unheralded  general  strikes,  in- 
dustrial and  interindustrial  cooperation  (i.e.,  the  radical 
One  Big  Union),  secret  organization  along  Soviet  lines, 
suspicion  and  hostility  toward  the  organs  of  the  Bourgeoise 
(i.e.,  government),  'proletarian  discipline'  (i.e.,  police) — 
these  things  characterize  the  movement  of  the  workers  the 
world  over  .  .  .  they  are  the  logical  result  of  the  situa- 
tion in  which  the  workers  (i.e.,  'transport  workers  of  New 
York')  have  found  themselves." 

(3.)  "TheCase  Against  Injunctions."  Nation,  May 
I,  ig20 — is  an  emphasis  of  the  workers'  need  of,  and  a  glori- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       423 

fication  of,  radical  industrial  unionism,  as  represented  by 
the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers,  of  which  he  says : 

"  The  Amalgamated  is  avowedly  a  socialist  tmion  and  will  not  conceal 
the  fact  that  it  aspires  to  the  elimination  of  the  control  of  the  private 
owner  over  industry" 

— and  which  he  again  refers  to  as : 

"  .  .  .  the  Amalgamated  which  represents  the  most  advanced  and 
successful  union  practice,  not  only  in  its  relation  with  the  employers  but 
in  its  attitude  toward  industrial  problems  (which  is  expressly  syndicalist, 
and)  its  constructive,  socialist  philosophy." 

(4.)  "The  Transportation  Breakdown."  Nation, 
July  J,  IQ20 — which  constitutes  an  appeal  to  the  railroad 
workers  against  A.  F.  of  L.  craft  unionism  and  in  favor  of  in- 
dustrial unionism  like  that  of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 
Workers,  which  are  specifically  held  up  as  an  example. 

(5.)  "The  Great  Woolen  Strike."  Nation,  Angus 
14,  igzo — which  ends  with  an  attack  on  the  present  in- 
dustrial system  and  particularly  the  wage  system.  This 
is  the  mildest  article  in  the  group. 

(6.)  "The  Building  Scandal."  Nation,  November  17, 
ig20.  Beginning  with  a  very  justifiable  attack  on  Brindell- 
ism,  this  article  makes  a  strong  appeal  to  the  workers  for 
"union  democracy"  like  that  of  the  "men's  clothing 
workers"  (i.e.,  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers).  It 
denounces  "private  profits  and  private  control"  of  the 
building  industry,  which  Mr.  Soule  insists  should  be  state 
controlled,  without  profits,  and  emphasizes  that  this  platform 
has  already  been  recommended  by  the  local  Farmer-Labor 
Party. 

(7.)  "Labor's  Impending  Battle."  New  Republic, 
November  17,  ig20.  This  is  throughout  a  stirring  appeal  to 
labor  to  organize  industrially,  again  holding  up  the  Amalga- 
mated Clothing  Workers  as  an  example,  and  also  offering  as 


424      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

an  example  to  American  workers  the  "industrially  organized 
National  Union  of  Railway  men  of  Great  Britain,"  which  it 
will  be  remembered  Foster  in  his  Great  Steel  Strike  holds  up 
as  an  example  to  American  radicals. 

These  1920  articles  are  also  typical  of  Mr.  Soule's 
magazine  contributions  for  191 9,  1921  and  1922. 

The  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism 
speaks  (page  1138)  of 

"George  Soule,  whose  radical  viewpoint  may  be  gathered  from  (his) 
association  with  Mr.  Evans  Clark  under  the  direction  of  Ludwig  C.  A. 
K.  Martens,  Head  of  the  Soviet  Bureau  in  the  United  States,  (his)  con- 
nection also  with  the  Rand  School  of  Social  Science  and  certain  revo- 
lutionary labor  organizations." 

After  spending  thirty  pages  presenting  copies  of  letters, 
propaganda  documents  and  other  various  appeals  to  Ameri- 
can workmen  made  through  various  American  radical 
organizations  or  periodicals  by  the  Russian  Soviet,  and  pre- 
senting detailed  proof  that  Ludwig  C.  A.  K.  Martens  was 
the  official  Soviet  representative  through  whom  that  propa- 
ganda was  being  put  out,  the  New  York  Legislative  Inves- 
gation  of  Radicalism,  on  page  655,  names  the  personnel  of 
this  Soviet  Propaganda  Bureau  in  part  as  follows : 

"...  Boris  Leonidovitch,  Tagueeff  Rousttam  Bek,  Ella  Tuch, 
Rose  Holland,  Henrietta  Meerowich,  Rose  Byers,  Vladimir  Olchovsky, 
Evans  Clark.  .    .    ," 

shortly  after  which  appears  the  statement: 

"In  dealing  with  the  subject,  the  Committee  has  found  it  necessary 
to  withhold  from  the  report  much  of  the  evidence  which  has  come  into 
its  hands  for  the  reason  that  it  mav  be  necessary  to  employ  it  in  criminal 
prosecution." 

For  at  least  the  last  year,  Mr.  George  Soule  and  Mr. 
Evans  Clark  have  occupied  the  same  office.  Room  710, 
I  Union  Square,  New  York  City,  where  they  are  both  now 
"Directors"  of  an  organization  known  as  the  Labor  Bureau. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       425 

On  the  back  page  of  the  April  9,  1921  issue  of  the  New 
York  Call,  an  official  radical  publication — of  which  incident- 
ally Mr.  Evans  Clark  is  Labor  Editor — appears  a  three- 
column  article  by  Mrs.  George  Soule,  known  in  radical 
Circles  as  Esther  Norton,  which  contains  the  following: 

"Magon,  Debs,  Haywood  and  hundreds  of  others  gave  up  their 
liberty.  They  did  it  for  us.  It  is  our  fight.  What  will  we  do  to  carry 
it  on?  .    .    . 

"We  can  delay  no  longer.  We  can  be  satisfied  with  half-hearted  at- 
tempts no  longer.  Now  is  the  time  for  every  worker  to  prove  his  sin- 
cerity to  the  labor  movement  by  doing  all  in  his  power  to  help  get  the 
political  prisoners,  the  class-war  prisoners  out  of  jail. 

"Whatever  your  group,  I.  W.  W.,  A.  F.  of  L.,  Amalgamated,  Com- 
munist, Socialist,  Farmer-Labor,  Left  Wing,  Right  Wing,  Center  or 
Advance  Guard — whatever  you  call  yourself,  get  into  line." 

Mr.  David  J.  Saposs. 

The  Foreword,  Volume  II,  Interchurch  Report,  page  v, 
says: 

"  David  J.  Saposs,  Research  As.-istant  to  Professor  John.R.  Commons 
co-author  with  Commons  and  Associates  of  History  of  Labor  in  the 
United  States;  special  investigator  U.  S.  Commission  on  Industrial  Re- 
lations; Expert  Bureau  of  Statistics  New  York  State  Department  of, 
Labor;  Industrial  Investigator  Carn^e  Corporation  Americanization 
study." 

The  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism 
lists  Mr.  Saposs  as  a  "radical  connected  with  steel  strike 
investigation  by  Interchurch  Movement" — "associated 
with  Ludwig  C.  A.  K.  Martens,  Russian  Soviet  representa- 
tive to  America;  associated  with  Rand  School." 

Mr.  Saposs'  name  also  appears  on  the  Bulletin  Board  at 
Number  i  Union  Square  as  occupying  Room  710  with 
Mr.  Evans  Clark  and  Mr.  George  Soule.  It  is  understood 
that  he  represents  their  "Labor  Bureau"  in  Chicago. 

Mr.  Saposs  has  been — whether  he  is  now  or  not  is  not 
known — educational  director  of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 
Workers,^  of  which  Committee  Mr.  William  Z.  Foster  is  an 

'  This  committee  is  understood  to  be  technically  a  separate  organi 
zation  from  the  A.  C.  W.  Union. 


426      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

official  lecturer.     Mr.  Saposs  is  also  one  of  the  incorporators 
of  the  radical  magazine,  The  Socialist  Review. 

In  the  first  November,  1919  issue  of  the  Survey  is'  an 
article  by  Mr.  Saposs  eulogizing  both  Mr.  Foster  and  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick,  the  two  chief  steel  strike  leaders,  in  the  highest 
terms  and  going  into  the  special  technical  organization  of 
the  strike  itself.  Articles  for  this  issue  are  due  in  the  edi- 
tor's hands  three  days  before  the  appearance  of  the  maga- 
zine (or  about  October  30th) ,  at  which  time  Mr.  Saposs  had 
been  in  the  field  about  two  weeks  as  an  "impartial"  in- 
vestigator of  the  Steel  Strike.  His  article,  therefore, 
wholly  sympathetic  and  partial  to  one  side,  was  probably 
written  just  when  he  was  beginning  his  "impartial"  investi- 
gation. If  it  was,  on  the  other  hand,  written  before  this, 
this  fact  lends  color  to  a  widely  alleged  fact,  namely,  that 
Mr.  Saposs  was  an  active  worker  on  the  side  of  the  steel 
strikers  till  called  upon  to  help  investigate  the  steel  strike. 

Miss  Marian  D.  Savage. 

Miss  Savage  is  a  teacher  of  English  literature  at  Wellesley 
College. 

Mr.  M.  Karl  Wisehart. 

Mr.  Wisehart  has  been  a  writer  of  fiction  and  popular 
articles  on  novel  phases  of  science  for  the  American  Maga- 
zine and  the  Century  Magazine;  which  magazines,  in 
contrast  to  others  mentioned  in  this  chapter,  are  unques- 
tionably thoroughly  American. 

Mr.  Robert  Littell. 

Mr.  Robert  Littell  who  was  employed  to  assist  in 
obtaining  the  "more  technical  and  detailed  data"  for  the 
steel  strike  investigation  in  1919  was  a  member  of  the 
Class  of  1 91 8  at  Harvard  College,  At  the  end  of  the 
steel  strike  investigation,  Mr.  Littell  became  associated 
with  his  father  in  the  editorial  department  of  the  New 
Republic. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       427 

Mr.  Heber  Blankenhorn. 

On  page  4  of  its  Foreword  the  Second  Volume  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  says: 

"The  Commission  was  particularly  fortunate  in  its  Secretary,  Heber 
Blankenhorn,  member  of  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research,  formerly 
Captain  U.  S.  A.  attached  to  the  General  StaflF  at  Washington;  then  at 
general  headquarters  of  the  A.  E.  F.  in  France;  later  attached  to  the 
Peace  Commission.  He  had  charge  of  the  Field  investigation  and 
investigators." 

During  the  war,  Mr.  Blankenhorn  was  "Captain,  Mili- 
tary Intelligence  Department,"  which  department  had 
charge  of  spy  and  propaganda  activities.  Mr.  Blanken- 
hom's  own  work  was  creating  and  directing  propaganda  to 
the  German  soldiers  and  working  classes.  It  was  well  known, 
of  course,  that  the  Socialist  revolution  was  at  that  time 
making  strong  headway  in  Germany,  and  in  so  far  as  they 
could  further  this  movement,  the  Allied  Intelligence  De- 
partments would  assist  in  breaking  down  German's  military 
spirit  and  power.  Mr.  Blankenhorn's  associate  in  his 
propaganda  work  was  Mr.  Walter  Lippman  of  the  New 
Republic.  Mr.  Blankenhorn's  work  during  the  war  was, 
from  all  accounts,  most  jefficient  and  fully  justified  his  repu- 
tation as  a  most  clever  and  effective  propagandist.  The 
plan,  for  instance,  which  is  generally  credited  to  him  per- 
sonally, of  sending  tickets  in  immense  ntunbers  over  the 
German  lines  by  balloons,  which  tickets  guaranteed  to 
each  German  soldier  who  kept  and  presented  one  when  he 
was  captured,  food  and  kind  treatment,  was  widely  spoken 
of  as  one  of  the  cleverest  "stunts  "  in  its  subtle  psychological 
appeal  of  all  such  allied  propaganda  efforts. 

In  regard  to  Lippman 's  work  before  going  to  France 
the  anarchist,  Roger  Baldwin,  wrote  Manley  Hudson 
(New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism,  page 
1087): 

"Lippman  and  Frankfurter  are  of  course  out  of  that  particular  job 
now  [war  office]  and  I  have  to  depend  entirely  on  Keppel." 


428      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

Just  after  this  Mr.  Baldwin  was  sent  to  prison  for  a  year 
for  personally  carrying  out  the  principles  of  his  "anti- 
draft"  propaganda  in  connection  with  which  work  he  had 
been,  according  to  himself,  depending  on  Lippman  and 
Frankfurter.  Mr.  Blankenhorn  both  before  and  after  this 
had  been  closely  associated  with  Roger  Baldwin  and  his 
work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  since  the  Interchurch  Investi- 
gation Mr  Blankenhorn  has  been  most  of  his  time  working 
under  Mr,  Baldwin's  co-worker,  Louis  P.  Lochner,  in 
an  organization  which  is  largely  an  offshoot  of  Mr.  Baldwin's 
main  radical  activity. 

After  Mr.  Baldwin's  release  from  prison,  he  reorganized 
(as  outlined  in  Chapter  XXIV  of  the  present  Analysis  and 
the  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism, 
Chapters  VII,  VIII  and  IX,  and  pages  1979  to  1999)  his 
wartime  radical  activities  into  a  "propaganda  organization " 
known  as  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union,  to  work 
"chiefly  in  cooperation  with  labor  unions  and  radical  poli- 
tical groups"  to  combat  laws  against  "criminal  syndical- 
ism,' '  * '  criminal  anarchy ' '  and  ' '  sedition. ' '  The  ' '  National 
Committee"  of  this  organization  is  largely  made  up  of  such 
well-known  radicals  as  Chrystal  Eastman,  John  A.  Fitch, 
William  Z.  Foster,  Morris  Hillquit,  James  H.  Maurer, 
Scott  Nearing,  Rose  Schneidermann,  etc.,  etc. 

At  about  the  same  time  there  was  also  organized  by  the 
same  general  interests  and  partly  by  the  same  men  the 
"Federated  Press."  Mr.  Baldwin  has  acted  as  spokesman 
for  this  organization  and  Mr.  Louis  P.  Lochner — who  with 
James  H.  Maurer,  Scott  Nearing  and  others,  in  the  cable- 
gram already  referred  to,  to  the  Russian  Soviets,  signed 
themselves  as  representing  "300  radical  groups  in  42 
states" — is  the  chief  executive  officer. 

The  Federated  Press  is  described  by  its  representatives 
as  an  "international  labor-news  service"  organized  in 
America  because  "America  seemed  the  only  country  that 
has  the  facilities  and  the  money  to  establish  such  a  bureau." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       429 

Its  purposes  are  twofold:  first,  "the  spreading  (in  America) 
of  news  relating  to  the  revolutionary  progress  in  foreign 
countries  and  in  general  (of)  a  propaganda  nature,"  and, 
second,  to  furnish  American  labor  news  to  foreign  radical 
papers  and  organizations. 

The  connection  between  the  Federated  Press  and  leading 
radicals  of  Russia  and  other  European  countries — as  de- 
scribed in  detail  by  Mr.  E.  J.  Costello,  who  was  sent  abroad 
at  the  instigation  of  "one  branch  of  the  Soviet  government 
service"  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  such  connections 
and  was  deported  from  England  while  carrying  out  this 
mission — is  published  in  the  New  York  Legislative  In- 
vestigation of  Radicalism,  pages  1993-1999- 

On  the  back  cover  of  the  Nation  of  March  30,  1921,  ap- 
peared a  full  page  advertisement  of  the  Federated  Press. 
This  advertisement  features  by  name  1 7  special  correspond- 
ents. The  first  five  in  the  order  they  appear,  with  a  list  of 
some  of  their  radical  activities,  as  given  by  the  New  York 
State  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radicalism,  are  as 
follows : 

Paul  Hanna — Publicity  agent  I.  W.  W. 
Laurence  Todd — Civil  Liberties  Bureau — I,  W.  W. 
Scott   Nearing — Indicted  under   Esponage  Act;   Rand 
School ;  Civil  Liberties  Bureau ;  Federated  Press. 
Frederick  Howe — American  Civil  Liberties  Union. 
Carl  Sandberg — Finnish  Red  Government. 

Among  these  specially  featured  "special  correspondents 
of  the  Federated  Press  appears  the  name  of  Mr.  Heber 
Blankenhom — and  a  few  months  later  that  of  Mr.  William 
Z.  Foster.* 

Of  a  number  of  the  most  radical  magazines  obtainable 

'  The  official  report — ^now  in  the  possession  of  the  American  Govern- 
ment— of  the  secret  Communist  Convention  of  August,  1922,  to  the 
Communist  officials  in  Moscow  says: — 

"Everywhere  we  support  the  labor  press,  urging  unions  to  stand  with 
the  Federated  Press." 


430      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

such  as  the  New  York  Call,  Chicago  News  Majority,  Daily 
Free  Russia,  One  Big  Union  Monthly,  I.  W.  W.  official  organ, 
etc.,  etc.,  all  contained  in  the  most  recent  issues  that  could 
be  obtained,  April  9th,  from  3  to  7  articles  signed  by  the 
Federated  Press. 

Again  an  appeal  has  recently  been  made  in  behalf  of  an 
organization  known  as  "The  Church  Socialist  League"  with 
headquarters  at  1 18  East  28th  Street,  New  York,  for  $15,000 
funds  to  "carry  on  Christian  Socialist  propaganda."  This 
organization  states  as  part  of  its  "formulated  program": 

"We  are  not  reformists  trying  to  patch  up  an  outworn  garment,  but 
Revolutionists,  striving  for  a  complete  revolution  of  our  economic 
and  social  order." 

In  the  list  of  "Executives  and  prominent  members  of 
the  League"  appears  the  name  "H.  Blankenhom,  field  in- 
vestigator for  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  N.  Y.  C." 

OTHER   TECHNICAL  ASSISTANTS 

In  addition  to  these  outside  individuals  who  acted  as 
"technical  experts"  to  the  Interchurch  Commission  of  In- 
quiry two  organizations  are  mentioned  by  name  as  having 
"obtained  directly"  "other  evidence."     These  were: 
The  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics  in  Washington,  D.  C. 

This  organization  is  referred  to  on  page  6,  line  23,  of  the 
Report  as  a  source  for  data  for  the  Steel  Report.  What  this 
data  consists  of  is  not  mentioned  but  as  has  been  emphasized 
the  Interchurch  Report  in  its  argimients  as  to  steel  wages 
and  working  hours  in  other  industries  in  one  place  ignores, 
in  another  contradicts,  and  in  others  states  conclusions  the 
opposite  of  those  shown  by  the  detailed  published  statistics 
of  this  organization.  ^ 

The  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research. 

Under  the  heading  "Socialist  Propaganda  in  Educated 
Circles,"  the  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of 
Radicalism  (page  1120)  says: 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       431 

"A  so-called  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  .  .  .  describes  itself  as 
being  organized  to  promote  soimd  human  relationship  in  industry. 
.  .  .  This  organization  cooperates  with  the  New  School  for  Social 
Research  which  has  been  established  by  men  who  belong  to  the  ranks 
of  the  Near-Bolshevik  Intelligentsia:  some  of  them  being  too  radical  in 
their  views  to  remain  on  the  faculty  of  Columbia  University." 

Its  officers  as  there  given  are — 
Robert  W.  Bruere — Director. 
Herbert  Croly — Treasurer. 
Ordway  Tead. 
Henry  C.  Metcalf. 
P.  Sargent  Florence. 
Leonard  Outhwaite. 
Carl  G.  Kersten. 
Mary  D.  Blankenhom." 

"liberal"  and  radical  publication 

A  number  of  the  special  investigators  and  technical  ex- 
perts who  are  at  least  chiefly  responsible  for  the  Interchurch 
Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  have  been  specifically  mentioned 
as  contributors  on  radical  subjects  to  various  magazines 
mentioned  by  name.  As  a  matter  of  fact  practically  all  the 
individuals  and  members  of  organizations  who  thus  assisted 
the  Commission  of  Inquiry  are  contributors  on  various  sub- 
jects to  this  same  group  of  periodicals  whose  names  are 
perhaps  better  known  than  their  particular  nature  and 
policy. 

Some  of  this  group  of  publications  are  self-admittedly 
radical.  Others  adopt  the  camouflage  which  radicals  so 
frequently  adopt  of  maintaining  an  outward  pose  of  being 
merely  "liberal."  In  regard  to  this  whole  group  of  maga- 
zines the  following  may  be  noted : 

The  Nation  is  one  such  magazine  which  assumes  before 
the  public  to  be  merely  "liberal."  The  following  excerpt 
of  a  letter  written  by  Arthur  C.  Calhoun  on  July  29,  1919, 
and  quoted  by  the  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of 
Radicalism  (page  11 14)  indicates  clearly  what,  among  its 


432       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

own  circle,  it  is  admitted  that  policy  of  the  Nation  really  is. 
This  letter  in  part  said: 

"Beals  was  here  last  week.  He  is  pushing  the  Nation.  Says  the 
circulation  has  quadrupled  since  they  became  Bolshevik." 

Prof.  Beals  is  listed  by  the  New  York  Legislative  In- 
vestigation on  Radicalism  (page  1114)  as  an  ex-Professor 
and  "open  Bolshevist,"  while  Prof.  Calhoun  as  an  important 
member  of  "The  Tri-State  Cooperative  Society  of  Pitts- 
burg, which  promotes  the  production  and  distribution  of 
Red  propaganda. ' '  The  editorial  department  of  the  Nation 
states  that  Charleton  Beals  was  not  officially  connected 
with  the  Nation  but  has  done  a  great  deal  of  work  for  them. 

Again  in  the  June,  1920  issue  of  Freedom,  pubHshed  by 
the  Ferrer  group  of  Anarchists  at  Stelton,  N.  J.,  appeared 
the  following: 

"Beginning  with  this  issue  Freedom  will  appear  under  the  Editorship 
of  Harry  Kelly,  etc.  ...  It  may  be  asked,  'Why  another  paper, 
when  the  broadly  libertarian  and  revolutionary  movement  is  so  ably 
represented  by  socialist  pnhlicationshkethe  Revolutionary  Age,  Liberator, 
Rebel  Worker,  Workers  World  and  many  others,  and  the  advanced  Liberal 
Movement  by  The  Dial,  Nation,  The  World  To-morrow  and  to  a  lesser 
degree,  the  New  Republic  and  Survey? '  These  publications  are  doing 
excellent  work  in  their  several  ways,  and  with  much  of  that  work  we 
find  ourselves  in  hearty  agreement.  They  are,  however,  liberal  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word,  Bolshevik,  or  Socialist  and  we  are  none  of 
these,  even  if  we  look  with  kindly  eye  on  all  of  them.    We  are  anarchists." 


CHAPTER  V 

COMPOSITION  AND  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 
REPORT 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  in  its  preface 
states  the  history  of  the  preparation  and  adoption  of  the 
Report  as  follows: 

"chronology  of  the  investigation 

Field  Investigation October,  1919,  to  February,  1920 

Mediation  Effort November  28  to  December  5,  1919 

Report  adopted  unanimously  by  the 

Commission  of  Inquiry March  29-30,  1920 

Report  received  by  the  Executive 
Committee    of    the    Interchurch 

World  Movement May  loth 

Recommended   for   publication   by 
sub-committee  of  the  Executive 

Committee June  25th. 

Personnel 
Dr.  Hubert  C.  Herring  (Congregational) 
Bishop  James  Cannon,  Jr.  (Methodist  South) 
Mr.  Warren  S.  Stone  (Congr^ational) 
Adopted  unanimously  by  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  Interchurch 
Movement June  28,  1920." 

This  official  chronology  is  obviously  intended  only  as  a 
meager  outline  of  the  most  salient  facts  in  connection  with 
the  investigation  and  their  dates.  It  makes  no  mention  of 
the  methods  of  procedure  of  the  investigation — how  much 

as  433 


434      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

of  the  actual  investigating  was  done  by  the  Commission  of 
Inquiry  and  how  much  was  left  to  the  outside  "field  in- 
vestigators"— as  to  whether  the  "500  rocli-bottom  "  affida- 
vits, on  which  the  Report  states  it  is  based,  were  obtained 
in  testimony  before  the  Commission  itself  or  were  merely 
obtained  by  the  outside  field  investigators  individually  and 
presented  later  to  the  Commission  of  Inquiry — as  to 
whether  or  not  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses  who  made 
these  affidavits  were  subject  to  any  cross-examination  to 
test  or  bring  out  the  full  value  of  their  testimony — as  to 
whether  the  Report  itself  was  written  by  a  member  of  the 
Commission  of  Inquiry  or  compiled  by  different  members, 
with  or  without  the  assistance  of  the  outside  field  investiga- 
tors, or  whether  it  was  written  by  one  or  a  group  of  the  out- 
side field  investigators — or  in  regard  to  any  fact  as  to  its 
methods  of  being  organized  for  presentation  to  the  public — 
all  of  which  facts  would  seem  to  be  pertinent  to  a  deter- 
mination of  the  soundness  of  the  method  of  investigation 
and  the  accuracy  of  presenting  the  results  of  the  investi- 
gation. 

In  regard  to  the  small  group  of  41  of  these  "500  rock- 
bottom  affidavits"  published  in  the  Second  Volume,  the 
Interchurch  Report  admits  that  they  were  at  least  partly 
obtained,  and  the  affidavits  themselves  show  they  were 
chiefly  obtained,  and  composed  by  or  for  James  F.  Maurer 
who  signed  himself  in  now  published  correspondence  with 
the  Russian  Soviets  as  "representing  300  radical  groups  in 
42  states."  These  were  not  only  plainly  not  subject  to  cross- ' 
examination  or  otherwise  tested  for  accuracy  but  they 
are  largely  exclamations,  descriptions,  insinuations,  often 
self -evidently  coloured  to  seem  to  make  sensational  allega- 
tions which  they  actually  do  not  make  at  all,  and  otherwise 
obviously  composed  for  propaganda  effect  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact  were  originally  used  for  propaganda  purposes.  That 
the  Interchurch  Report  also  offers  such  statements  and 
affidavits  as  bona  fide  evidence  after  their  own  authors  had 
under  oath  and  cross-examination  publicly  repudiated  all 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       435 

the  substantial  parts  of  them  has  already  been  shown  in 
detail. 

Moreover,  although  the  facts  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  were  immediately,  and  have  been  a 
number  of  times  since,  much  discussed  and  inquired  into, 
members  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  have  refused  to 
state  the  authorship  beyond  denying  that  certain  alleged 
authors  wrote  the  Report. 

A  Reverend  Victor  Bigelow,  pastor  of  a  Congregational 
Church  in  Andover,  Massachusetts,  in  a  debate  in  regard 
to  the  fairness  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  with  Mr.  George 
W.  Coleman,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Commission  of  In- 
quiry, held  before  the  Worcester  Congregational  Church, 
March  14,  192 1,  and  of  which  the  author  was  able  to  obtain 
a  stenographic  report,  asked  Mr.  Coleman  point  blank  who 
wrote  the  Steel  Strike  Report.     Mr.  Coleman  replied: 

"We  wrote  it  positively.  It  was  not  written  by  any  man.  No  man 
lives  today  who  can  claim  he  wrote  that  Report." 

Just  how  far  this  statement  may  be  regarded  as  being 
technically  within  the  truth  will  be  pointed  out  in  detail 
later. 

A  little  later  in  the  same  speech,  after  enumerating  who 
he  means  by  "we" — that  is,  the  members  of  the  "Com- 
mission of  Inquiry" — Mr.  Coleman  continued: 

"Many  of  them  (Commissioners  of  Inquiry)  had  not  seen  each  other 
before.  They  came  from  different  parts  of  the  country,  from  8  different 
denominations.  They  went  right  to  work  gathering  information  and 
gathering  testimony.  We  did  not  know  where  we  were  coming  out 
exactly  tmtil  we  sat  down  to  write  our  report — and  wonder  of  wonders 
nine  people  representing  8  different  denominations,  coming  from  different 
parts  of  the  country,  each  of  them  with  the  interests  of  his  own  denomina- 
tion at  heart,  all  agreed.  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  like  that  in  church 
affairs?" 

And  he  says  again : 

"It  (The  Interchurch  Report)  stands  as  the  report  of  organized 
Protestantism  of  North  America  as  represented  by  the  Interchurch 


436      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

World  Movement,  giving  it  the  fullest  consideration  and  finally  putting 
their  O.  K.  and  approval  on  it." 

The  fact  that  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  that  signed  the 
Report  have  thus  chosen  to  take  the  attitude,  both  in  the 
Report  itself  and  in  answer  to  inquiries  in  regard  to  it,  of 
refusing  to  discuss  its  authorship  beyond  Mr.  Coleman's 
very  general  statement  that  they  all  wrote  it,  or  to  discuss  in 
any  lengthy  detail  the  methods  adopted  in  making  the  investi- 
gation and  preparing  the  Report — make  it  correspondingly 
difficult  to  obtain  any  very  complete  evidence  on  these 
points. 

The  following  facts,  however,  appear  from  the  following 
evidence : 

Mr.  Coleman  said  further,  in  the  same  Worcester  speech : 

"  When  I  was  called  to  New  York  to  attend  a  special  meeting  of  the  steel 
strike  commission,  to  listen  to  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  one  of  the  strike  leaders," 
etc.,  during  which  meeting  Mr.  Coleman  states  that  Mr.  Fitzpatrick 
said,  "Gentlemen,  I  am  commissioned  in  behalf  of  the  strikers  to  put 
our  case  in  your  hands  without  any  limitation  or  reservation." 

Mr.  Coleman's  previous  statement  that  when  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Commission  got  together  they  went  immediately 
to  work  "gathering  information  and  gathering  testimony," 
taken  in  connection  with  the  phraseology  of  this  statement, 
indicates  that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Commission  of 
Inquiry  was  to  thus  discuss  the  investigation  with  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick,  President  of  the  Strike  Leaders  Committee, 
who  during  the  discussion  stated  that  he  put  the  strikers' 
cause  "without  limitation  or  reservation"  in  the  hands  of 
the  Commission  of  Inquiry. 

Mr.  George  Soule  who  is  the  first  mentioned  (Interchurch 
Report  Index)  of  the  outside  "staff  of  field  investigators" 
states  that  he  was  put  in  immediate  charge  of  the  Pittsburg 
field  work  of  the  investigation  and  that  he,  followed  shortly 
by  Mr.  David  Saposs  proceeded  at  once  to  the  Pittsburg  dis- 
trict with  certain  definite  plans  for  making  the  inve:  tigation. 
He  first  approached  certain  officials  of  the  subsidiary  com- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       437 

panics  of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  stating  to  them  the 
fact  and  purpose  of  the  proposed  investigation,  asking  for 
relevant  facts  and  figures  and  suggesting  that  the  privilege 
of  access  to  the  books  and  records  of  the  company  and 
introductions  to  local  superintendents  be  granted  him.  Mr. 
Soule  states  that  these  requests  were  not  in  any  case  com- 
plied with  and  that  they  got  a  minimtun  of  the  information 
they  desired  from  the  local  steel  companies.  He  then  ap- 
proached the  strike  leaders  with  the  same  request  with 
which  the  strike  leaders  willingly  complied,  putting  all  their 
books  and  records  at  the  disposal  of  the  Interchurch 
Investigation  and  giving  introductions  to  local  leaders  which 
admitted  to  all  strike  meetings. 

Later —  Mr.  Soule  does  not  recollect  the  exact  time — 
members  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  spent  "  some  time" 
in  the  Pittsburg  District  and  held  "hearings"  before  which 
all  persons  in  the  community  having  knowledge  of  the 
situation,  who  could  be  induced  to  testify,  including  clergy- 
men, government  officials,  industrial  experts,  neutrals  and 
many  of  the  strike  leaders  and  strikers  and  strike  sym- 
pathizers testified,  of  which  testimony  a  complete  record 
was  made.  Certain  steel  officials  were  requested  to  appear 
also  before  the  Commission  to  give  testimony.  They  sug- 
gested, however,  that  they  would  prefer  to  meet  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  in  their  own  offices. 
Several  such  interviews  were  arranged  but  at  the  request, 
according  to  Mr.  Soule,  of  these  steel  officials,  no  records 
were  made  during  such  conversations  of  what  was  said.  Im- 
mediately thereafter  all  members  of  the  Commission  present 
recorded  their  memories  of  the  inter v'ews.^ 

Both  the  Interchurch  Report  and  Mr.  Soule  also  state 
that  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  similarly  visited  certain 
other  strike  areas  and  Mr.  Coleman  names  these  as  Johns- 
town and  Chicago.  The  Interchurch  Report  itself  mentions 
without  detail  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois. 

'  This  section  in  its  present  form  has  been  revised  by  Mr.  Soule  so 
that  a  large  part  of  it  is  in  his  own  language. 


438      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

The  Chronology  of  the  Investigation  in  the  index  of  the 
Interchurch  Report  mentions  "a  Mediation  effort  Nov. 
28th — Dec.  5th,  1919." 

Mr.  Foster  in  his  book,  The  Great  Steel  Strike,  furnished 
the  only  available  evidence  of  the  nature  of  this  attempt  at 
Mediation  until  the  second  Interchurch  volume  appeared 
nearly  two  years  later.     He  says  (page  157)  : 

.  "Consequently  John  Fitzpatrick,  Chaiiman  of  the  National  (Strike) 
Committee,  put  before  Mr.  Blankenhorn  a  plan  for  the  settlement  of 
the  strike  by  mediation.  Mr.  Blankenhorn  felt  however  that  it  might  be 
better  to  recommend  that  the  Commission  move  independently  rather 
than  as  merely  representing  the  strikers." 

Mr.  Foster  then  devotes  the  next  three  pages  to  giving 
details  in  regard  to  the  plan  which  was  originated  by  the 
strikers  but  presented  to  Judge  Gary  as  coming  from  the 
Interchurch  Commission,  in  which  it  was  proposed  that 
the  "Commission  set  up  a  permanent  mediation  body  to 
bring  about  a  conference  between  employers  and  employees 
in  the  steel  industry."  In  other  words,  the  Commission  of 
Inquiry  thus  proposed  to  Judge  Gary  as  their  plan  what 
was  actually  the  plan  of  the  strike  leaders  that  Judge  Gary 
yield  at  this  time  and  grant  the  "conference"  which  was 
the  express  chief  issue  in  the  whole  strike.  The  memo- 
randum to  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  containing  the  statement  of 
Judge  Gary's  refusal  to  agree  to  this  plan,  was  signed  by 
Mr.  Blankenhorn  and  dated  December  6th.  The  Inter- 
church Report's  own  account  in  Volume  II  while  more  de- 
tailed and  from  a  different  point  of  view  is  substantially 
the  same. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  Mr.  Soule  had  been  assigned 
to  a  special  investigation  of  conditions  in  regard  to  the  re- 
fusal of  authorities  to  allow  strikers'  meetings.  As  Mr. 
Soule  gave  his  chief  attention  thereafter  to  this  special  work, 
being  succeeded  by  Mr.  Blankenhorn  as  head  of  the  general 
field  work,  he  is  less  familiar  with  the  lines  along  which  the 
latter  part  of  the  general  investigation  was  conducted  and  is 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       439 

only  generally  familiar  with  the  facts  as  to  the  preparation 
of  the  main  report  itself.  All  the  facts  available  however, 
and  the  plain  statement  of  the  Interchurch  Report  itself 
show,  as  already  emphasized  that  the  whole  investigation 
was  carried  on  almost  entirely  by  the  staff  of  outside  "field 
investigators"  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Blankenhom. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  Mr.  Heber  Blankenhom 
was  also  the  actual  author  of  the  Interchurch  Report.  The 
Interchurch  Report  states  that  he  "had  charge  of  the  field 
work  and  later  (i.e.,  during  the  preparation  of  the  Report) 
acted  as  secretary  to  the  Commission."  Mr.  Blankenhom 
is  a  writer  by  profession  and  his  position  as  secretary  would 
make  him  the  logical  author  if  any  one  man  was  to  be  the 
author.  The  fact,  definitely  emphasized  by  the  Interchurch 
Report,  that  he  was  "Editor"  of  its  second  volume  and 
that  he  signed  the  various  introductions,  etc.,  to  each 
section  is  doubtless  also  significant.  A  comparison  of  the 
very  distinct  individual  literary  style  of  the  Interchurch 
Report  with  the  style  of  these  sections  of  Volume  II  and 
with  other  writings  of  Mr.  Blankenhom  offers  a  type  of 
evidence  which  is  accepted  by  our  courts,  that  Mr.  Blanken- 
hom is  the  author. 

Moreover,  any  careful  examination  of  the  published 
works  of  various  members  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry 
will  also  show  plainly  that  the  Interchurch  Report  is  written 
with  a  style  and  vocabulary  and  particularly  with  a  unique 
sentencie  structure,  which  is  strikingly  different  from  that 
employed  by  any  of  these  Interchtu-ch  Commissioners  in 
their  own  published  works. 

Part  One  of  this  analysis  described  the  nature  and  sources 
of  the  "evidence"  collected  by  the  "technical  assistants." 
It  emphasized  the  means  employed  in  extracting  figures 
from  government  statistics  and  bits  of  testimony  from  the 
Senate  report  to  produce  impressions  or  force  conclusions 
diametrically  opposed  to  those  arrived  at  by  the  government 
statisticians  and  by  the  Senate  Committee  from  all  of  the 
figures  and  all  of  the  testimony  available. 


440      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

It  is,  of  course,  conceivable  that  the  Interchurch  Com- 
missioners of  Inquiry  themselves  might  have  accepted  this 
kind  of  "evidence"  from  their  "technical  assistants"  or 
others  in  whom  they  had  confidence  and  written  a  report 
around  it  in  good  faith. 

But,  as  already  pointed  out,  "evidence"  throughout  the 
Interchurch  Report,  including  much  that  is  in  itself  entirely 
innocent,  is  led  up  to  and  surrounded  by  context  which 
seems  to  give  it  a  meaning  that  the  "evidence"  itself  does 
not  possess.  Arguments,  which  have  no  substantial  basis 
in  the  evidence  submitted  with  them,  are  built  upon  insinu- 
ation or  misleading  statements,  the  clever  coupling  of 
unrelated  facts,  and  similar  devices  calculated  to  deceive. 

It  seems  utterly  inconceivable  that  any  of  the  distin- 
guished Christian  leaders  who  signed  the  Interchurch 
Report  would,  even  if  they  could,  handle  the  "evidence" 
submitted  by  their  "technical  assistants"  in  the  adroit 
manner  exhibited  by  the  Report  for  the  purpose  of  produc- 
ing impressions  and  forcing  conclusions.  Aside  from  other 
considerations,  it  would  have  required  an  unity  of  thought, 
purpose,  and  disposition,  which  it  would  have  been  difficult, 
if  not  impossible,  to  secure. 

Mr.  Blankenhorn,  on  the  other  hand,  served  during  the 
war,  as  an  officer  in  that  branch  of  the  service  which  de- 
manded the  highest  type  of  ability  in  creating  and 
disseminating  effective  propaganda;  and  since  the  war  he 
has  been  openly  working  with  William  Z.  Foster,  whom  the 
Interchurch  Report  particularly  eulogizes,  and  with  other 
radicals,  as  a  professional  propagandist  in  a  notorious  radi- 
cal propaganda  organization  which  the  Interchurch  Report 
twice  goes  out  of  its  way  to  advertise,  and  whose 
propaganda  is  directed  to  advance  at  least  the  same  general 
theories  for  which  the  Interchurch  Report  consistently 
argues. 

Mr.  Bronson  Batchelor,  Mr.  Stanley  Went,  the  original 
editor  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike,  and 
Mr.  Harold  C.  Reynolds,  all  three  state  not  only  that  it 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       441 

was  a  matter  of  commonest  knowledge  among  all  those 
in  touch  with  that  part  of  the  work  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  but  that  they  know  of  their  own  per- 
sonal knowledge  that  Mr.  Blankenhorn  wrote  the  Report. 

Two  of  Mr.  Blankenhom's  close  personal  associates  state 
that  he  has  said  repeatedly  to  them  or  in  their  presence 
that  he  wrote  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  steel  strike 
going  into  details  as  to  how  and  why  he  wrote  it  as  he  did. 

Dr.  WilHam  Hiram  Foulkes,  Chairman  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  which  finally  passed  on  the  "Steel  Re- 
port," discussed  the  Interchurch  Report  as  a  product  of 
Mr.  Blankenhom's  authorship  without  questioning  the 
fact  as  to  such  authorship.  In  his  conversation  with  Dr. 
McDowell,  m.ember  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry,  the 
writer  brought  up  the  subject  of  Mr.  Blankenhom's  author- 
ship of  the  Interchurch  Report.     Dr.  McDowell  stated  that : 

"  Mr.  Blankenhorn  was  Secretary  of  the  Commission  and  as  such  he 
prepared  certain  parts  of  the  Report,  which  were  laid  before  the  Com- 
mission for  their  review  and  approval.  The  Commission  passed  on 
(the)  Report  as  a  whole  after  several  carefvd  reviews  of  its  contents." 

This  statement  by  Dr.  McDowell,  was  given  only  after  he 
had  inadvertently  made  a  much  broader  admission.  It 
was  most  carefully  formulated.  The  phrase  "prepared 
certain  parts  of  the  Report"  may  mean  that  Mr.  Blanken- 
horn "prepared"  all  the  Report  except  the  "Findings," 
"Recommendations,"  and  certain  other  brief  sections  which 
are  known  to  have  been  prepared  by  others,  or  it  may  mean 
less  than  this.     Dr.  McDowell  refused  to  be  specific. 

Again  in  a  signed  statement  (published  in  full  below), 
Mr.  Tyler  Dennett,  Director  of  the  Publicity  Department, 
to  whom  the  Report  was  submitted  for  editing,  and  who 
read  the  manuscript  carefully  with  this  end  in  view,  refers 
to  the  Report  as  having  been  published  ''substantially  as 
Mr.  Blankenhorn  wrote  it."  But  he  added  at  the  time  and 
emphasized  later  that  in  his  opinion  Mr.  Blankenhom's  au- 
thorship  consisted   largely   of   compilation — this   opinion 


442      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

being  based  on  the  inferior  literary  quality  of  certain  parts 
of  the  manuscript.  Mr.  Went,  to  whom  Mr.  Dennett 
turned  the  manuscript  over  to  edit,  also  emphasizes  the  in- 
ferior literary  quality  of  certain  parts  of  it.  This  would 
obviously  seem  to  preclude  the  possibility  that  any  of  the 
Interchurch  Commissioners  themselves  could  have  prepared 
the  material  from  which  Mr.  Blankenhorn  is  thus  thought  to 
have  "compiled"  these  sections  or  have  materially  changed 
the  Report  after  it  was  written  and  before  it  was  edited. 

In  regard  to  the  editing  of  the  Interchurch  Report,  Mr. 
Dennett  stated : 

"A  copy  of  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  in  its  original  form  was  put 
into  my  hands  in  the  latter  part  of  May  (1920)  as  part  of  the  regular 
routine  of  my  office,  for  the  purpose  of  editing  and  publicity.  The  manu- 
script was  turned  over  to  Mr.  Stanley  Went  for  this  purpose.  Later, 
the  Report  was  edited  without  reference  to  Mr.  Went's  work  by  Mr. 
James  E.  Craig. 

"In  regard  to  the  editing  of  the  Steel  Strike  Report  this  consisted 
chiefly  of  changes  in  literary  style  and  the  elimination  of  statements 
which  the  editors  did  not  believe  to  be  warranted  by  the  evidence  pre- 
sented. Otherwise  the  Report  was  published  substantially  as  Mr. 
Blankenhorn  wrote  it.  No  facts  or  statements  essential  to  the  general 
conclusions  were  eliminated.  The  editors  made  no  attempt  to  pass  on 
the  merits  of  the  evidence  presented." 

Between  the  date  that  the  "Report  (was)  adopted 
unanimously  by  the  Commission  of  Inquiry,  March  29-30, 
1920,"  according  to  the  Interchurch  Report  "chronology," 
page  5,  and  "after  several  careful  reviews  of  its  contents" 
according  to  Dr.  McDowell,  and  the  date  of  its  being  edited, 
the  Report  was  "received  by  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Interchurch  Movement,  May  10."  This  was  at  a 
meeting  at  Columbus,  Ohio.  During  the  day  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  had  discussed  the  fact  that  the  April  finan- 
cial drive  and  second  supplementary  financial  drive  which 
had  immediately  followed  it,  had  failed  and  that  the  Move- 
ment faced  the  necessity  of  liquidation.  At  a  dinner  con- 
ference at  which  Dr.  Foulkes  presided,  and  at  which 
Bishop  McConnell,  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  and  Mr. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       443 

Tyler  Dennett,  in  addition  to  the  members  of  the  Executive 
Committee,  were  present,  copies  of  a  summary  of  the  Report 
on  the  Steel  Strike,  corresponding  in  general  to  the  Intro- 
duction in  the  volume  as  published,  were  circulated  and 
Bishop  McConnell  urged  that  the  Report  be  accepted  for 
publication.  This  meeting  appointed  a  sub-committee, 
consisting  (Interchurch  Report  chronology,  page  5)  of  Dr. 
Hubert  C.  Herring,  Bishop  James  Cannon,  Jr.,  and  Mr. 
Warren  S.  Stone,  to  go  into  the  subject  in  greater  detail. 
The  copies  of  the  Summary  were  not  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
Committee  members  present  but  were  collected  after  the 
meeting. 

Some  ten  days  later  the  complete  Steel  Strike  Report 
manuscript  was  sent  to  Mr.  Tyler  Dennett's  department 
"for  the  purpose  of  editing  and  publicity."  After  reading 
the  manuscript  carefully  himself  Mr.  Dennett,  as  already 
stated,  turned  it  over  to  Mr.  Stanley  Went  for  editing. 
Mr.  Went  was  engaged  in  this  work  from  the  latter  part  of 
May  until  the  middle  of  June. 

On  June  17th  Mr.  Went  returned  Mr.  Blankenhom's 
original  draft  to  Mr.  Tyler  Dennett  accompanied  by  the 
memorandum  which  has  been  reproduced  in  part  in  the 
Foreword  of  the  present  Analysis  in  which  Mr.  Went  con- 
demned the  bias  of  the  Report  as  "so  patent  that  it  would 
make  it  a  comparatively  easy  matter  to  discredit  the  entire 
Report." 

He  stated  further  in  this  memorandum  that  he  had  edited 
the  Report  as  lightly  as  seemed  compatible  "with  the  end 
in  view,"  "that  end  as,  I  understand  it,  was  to  present  the 
Report  in  a  form  which  should  give  the  least  possible  im- 
pression of  bias  on  the  part  of  the  investigating  com- 
mittee. "  He  states  that  he  did  not  follow  his  own  feelings 
in  the  matter  but  rather  had  "leaned  over  backwards  in  a 
desire  to  present  the  case  of  the  Commission  as  much  as 
possible  in  the  way  the  original  writer  thought  it  should  be 
presented." 

Mr.  Went  states  that  two  further  reasons  why  he  did  not 


444      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

attempt  to  go  beyond  this  in  editing  the  Report  were  because 
he  considered  that  any  adequate  editing  would  require  almost 
complete  rewriting  and  because  he  doubted  whether  the 
Report  even  with  any  amount  of  editing  would  be  allowed 
by  the  higher  officials  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  to 
be  published. 

Mr.  James  Craig  who  did  the  final  editing  with  "an- 
other gentleman"  under  the  authority  of  Dr.  Poling,  states 
that  Mr.  Went's  complete  editorial  notes  and  comments  on 
the  Report  were  turned  over  by  Mr.  Dennett  to  him.  Mr. 
Craig  states  further  that  in  order  not  to  be  in  any  way  in- 
fluenced in  advance,  he  did  not  refer  to  Mr.  Went's  notes 
until  after  he  had  gone  over  the  Report  and  formed  his  own 
opinions.  He  states  that  his  own  personal  opinion  in  many 
respects  was  the  same  as  that  of  Mr.  Went  but  that  as  it 
had  been  decided  by  his  superiors  to  publish  the  Report  he 
did  not  allow  his  personal  opinion  to  enter  into  the  matter. 
Mr.  Craig  has  made  a  specific  statement  on  this  whole 
subject  as  follows: 

"  Mr.  We!nt  began  some  preliminary  editing  but  this  work  was  stopped 
because  of  the  financial  collapse  of  the  Movement  following  the  unsuc- 
cessful financial  campaign,  April  25th-May  2nd.  Whether  the  Report 
should  be  published  or  not  was  bound  up  very  largely  with  the  equally 
vexing  question  of  whether  the  Movement  could  continue  any  activity. 
It  was  finally  agreed  to  disband  the  organization  except  for  enough 
people  to  wind  up  affairs.  The  entire  publicity  department  was  dis- 
charged except  myself.  I  was  retained  because  I  had  been  doing  some 
special  work  for  Dr.  Cory,  Dr.  Poling  and  Dr.  Diffendorfer  in  connec- 
tion with  the  supplementary  effort  to  raise  money.  When  it  was  de- 
cided to  continue  the  work  on  the  Steel  Report  and  when  sufficient 
funds  were  in  hand  for  that  purpose  I  was  asked  to  outline  a  publicity 
plan  and  to  prepare  the  manuscript  of  the  Report  for  publication. 
My  personal  economic  views  did  not  enter  into  the  matter  at  all. 
This  is  the  more  evident  from  the  fact  that  my  own  views  in  general 
accord  with  those  of  Mr.  Went.  I  approached  the  task  from  the  view- 
point of  a  conscientious  newspaper  copy  editor,  trying  to  do  a  high- 
grade  technical  task,  in  which  I  was  looking  after  the  interests  of  my 
employer.  My  employer  was  and  had  been  for  more  than  a  year 
previous  to  this  the  Interchurch  World  Movement." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       445 

The  fact  above  emphasized  by  Mr.  Craig,  that  the  two 
financial  drives  in  April  and  May  so  failed  to  raise  the 
needed  amounts  of  money  that  the  whole  Interchurch 
Movement  began  a  liquidation  in  which  it  not  only  aban- 
doned all  the  fundamental  objectives  for  which  it  had 
been  organized,  but  the  great  bulk  of  the  work  which  it 
had  already  done,  raises  the  question  that  has  often 
been  discussed  in  inner-Interchurch  circles  as  to  why, 
under  such  circumstances,  the  Steel  Strike  Report  was 
practically  the  only  activity  carried  forward  and  how,  under 
these  ciromistances,  the  money  was  found  for  this  purpose. 

The  author  made  particular  effort  to  get  the  facts  as  to 
how  and  where  under  the  circumstances  the  money  was 
found  for  completing  and  publishing  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port, including  the  Second  Volume.  Three  gentlemen, 
intimately  associated  with  the  Movement,  told  the  author 
that  shortly  before  the  Report  was  published,  Mrs.  D.  Willard 
Straight  donated  $50,000  to  the  Interchurch  Movement 
with  the  express  provision  that  the  money  was  to  be  used 
in  the  Industrial  Department  only.  They  stated  that  it  was 
generally  believed  in  the  inner  circles  of  the  Movement  that 
the  Report  was  completed  and  published  with  this  money. 
They  also  stated,  however,  that  as  they  were  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  substantiate  the  detailed  accuracy  of  their  under- 
standing, they  did  not  wish  to  be  personally  quoted. 

Mrs.  D.  Willard  Straight  is  well  known  as  the  financial 
backer  of  the  New  Republic,  and  more  recently  of  The 
New  Student,  an  inter-collegiate  magazine  through  which 
The  World  Tomorrow,  Nation,  New  Republic,  Bureau  of 
Industrial  Research,  Civil  Liberties  Union,  etc.,  group  are 
making  a  specialized  effort  at  radical  propaganda  among 
American  colleges.  During  the  widespread  campaign  of 
radical  agitation  built  around  the  Sacco-Vanzetti  murder 
trial,  as  part  of  which  agitation  Spanish  radicals  attempted 
to  blow  up  the  American  Embassy,  Mrs.  Straight,  according 
to  numerous  published  statements,  gave  $2,500  to  the  Sacco- 
Vanzetti  defense  fund.     In  fact  Mrs.  Straight  is  so  well 


446      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

known  as  a  financial  supporter  of  various  radical  activities 
that  when  the  New  York  Legislative  Investigation  of  Radi- 
calism, on  page  1097,  publishes  correspondence  relatingto 
Mr.  Roger  Baldwin's  sending  Chumley,  the  collector  for  the 
I.  W.  W.  to  Mrs.  Straight,  it  obviously  does  not  even  regard 
it  as  necessary  to  comment  on  her  status  in  the  matter. 

After  the  liquidation  of  the  Interchurch  Movement, 
many  of  its  records  were  turned  over  to  the  New  York 
Federation  of  Churches.  Reverend  H.J.  Laflamme  of  that 
organization  is  one  of  a  large  number  of  former  Interchurch 
Movement  officials  who  apparently  believe  that  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  Interchurch  activities  were  made  possible 
through  millions  of  dollars  of  public  contributions  the  public 
certainly  has  a  right  to  know  the  facts  in  regard  to  at  least 
the  most  conspicuous  of  such  activities.  As  a  result  of  his 
investigation  of  the  records  in  his  possession,  Mr.  Laflamme 
on  August  1 1 ,  1922,  wrote  the  author  as  follows : 

"Mrs.  D.  Willard  Straight's  $50,000  was  given  before  May  of  1920 
and  to  be  used  in  the  Industrial  Department  only.  Beyond  this  I  have 
no  record  or  knowledge." 

This  concrete  evidence  seemed  strongly  to  substantiate 
the  above  mentioned  statements  of  various  Interchurch 
officials.  A  further  search,  however,  of  the  Interchurch 
records  on  this  subject  by  Mr.  Laflamme  shows  that  no  part 
of  Mrs,  Straight's  $50,000  pledge  was  ever  paid  at  least  into 
the  regular  channels  of  the  Interchurch  Movement.  Ob- 
viously then  either,  (i)  Mrs.  Straight  refused  to  pay  a 
pledge  she  had  made,  which  seems  highly  improbable  in 
itself  and  particularly  improbable  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  work  for  which  this  pledge  was  thus  understood  to  be 
specifically  given  was  carried  out  not  only  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  original  Interchurch  Report  but  by  the  publica- 
tion after  months  of  further  work  of  a  second  Interchurch 
Report ;  or  (2)  this  contribution  was  paid  to  individual  officials 
of  the  Interchurch  Movement  who  never  accounted  for  it  to 
the  Movement — which  seems  entirely  improbable,  or  (3) 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       447 

by  some  special  arrangement  its  payment  was  transferred 
to  the  outside  group  associated  with  the  Bruere-Blan- 
kenhom  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  who  were  actually 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  original  Interchurch  Report 
and  admittedly  responsible  for  the  second  Interchurch 
Report. 

This  latter  information  from  Mr.  Laflamme  and  the  three 
alternatives  it  presents  was  discussed  with  the  three  gentle- 
men above  referred  to.  They  believed  that  it  tended  to 
confirm  their  former  understanding.  A  fourth  man,  how- 
ever, in  perhaps  the  best  position  of  all  to  know  the  facts, 
but  who  also  would  not  be  personally  quoted,  stated  that 
money  had  already  been  provided  to  complete  the  Inter- 
church Report;  that  Mrs.  Straight's  pledge  of  $50,000  was 
to  cover  the  expenses  of  work  to  be  done  by  the  Industrial 
Department  in  the  following  year,  and  that  as  the  Move- 
ment, and  so  the  Industrial  Department,  was  discontinued, 
and  the  work  not  carried  through,  Mrs.  Straight  did  not  pay 
this  pledge  at  all.  He  was  asked  if  he  knew  that  Mrs. 
Straight  did  not  pay  this  money  directly  to  the  Bureau  of 
Industrial  Research  and  if  not  where  they  got  the  money  to 
carry  on  the  work  necessary  to  the  publication  of  the  second 
Interchurch  Report.  He  replied  that  it  is  well  known  that 
Mrs.  Straight  regularly  supports  the  Bureau  of  Industrial 
Research. 

Evidence  from  anonymous  sources  which  also  perhaps 
involves  a  certain  amount  of  opinion,  is,  of  course,  not  very 
satisfactory.  In  the  present  instance,  however,  all  this 
part  of  the  evidence  may  be  entirely  left  out  of  considera- 
tion, and  there  still  remains,  as  matters  of  specific  record,  the 
following  facts.  Although  the  Interchurch  Movement  had 
failed  to  obtain  the  money  to  carry  out  the  fundamental 
religious  work  for  which  it  was  started  and  was  abandoning 
such  fundamental  religious  work,  much  of  which  it  had  well 
on  towards  completion,  it  did  complete  and  publish  the 
Interchurch  Report.  This  Report,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
it  was  published  with  full  knowledge  of  the  financial  condi- 


448      HISTORY  OP  THE  INTERCHURCH 

tion  of  the  Movement,  refers  in  several  places  to  the  in- 
tention of  preparing  and  publishing  further  reports,  which 
would  of  course  involve  much  further  expense.  A  large 
further  Report  was  prepared  and  published  over  a  year  later. 
When  the  financial  future  and  so  the  continued  existence  of 
the  Interchurch  Movement  was  in  doubt,  Mrs.  Straight, 
whose  contributions  to  radical  and  "liberal"  movements 
are  notorious,  pledged  $50,000  "to  be  used  in  the  Industrial 
Department  only."  This  is  the  Department  which  origi- 
nated the  Steel  Strike  investigation  and  of  which  Mr.  Robert 
W.  Bruere — whose  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  was  the 
technical  adviser  and  furnished  the  investigators  and  the 
author  for  the  Interchurch  Report — was  Superintendent  of 
Research, — "research"  being  the  chief  function  of  this  De- 
partment. Whether,  therefore,  the  particular  $50,000  thus 
pledged,  went  through  some  Interchurch  channel  or  to  the 
Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  direct,  to  pay  for  the  com- 
pletion and  publication  of  the  two  Interchurch  Reports,  or 
whether,  because  of  the  fact  that  the  same  Bruere-Blanken- 
horn  group  had  to  function  nominally  as  the  Bureau  of 
Industrial  Research  instead  of  nominally  as  the  Interchurch 
Industrial  Department,  in  the  preparation  and  publication 
of  the  second  Report,  this  particular  $50,000  was  not  paid, 
it  is  at  least  entirely  clear  that  these  Reports  are  of  a  nature 
and  represent  a  point  of  view  which  radical  interests  stood 
ready  to  pay  $50,000  to  have  carried  on. 

On  June  25th,  just  a  week  after  Mr.  Went  turned  the 
edited  document  over  to  Mr.  Dennett,  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port was  recommended  for  publication  by  the  sub-com- 
mittee of  the  Executive  Committee  appointed  May  loth. 

The  Preface  of  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  states  that 
the  Report  was  ''adopted  unanimously  by  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  on  June 
28th" — three  days  later. 

According  to  the  official  handbook  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement,  page  109,  the  Executive  Committee 
consisted  of: 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       449 

"executive  committee" 

John  R.  Mott,  Chairman. 

Mr.  Mott  is  General  Secretary  of  the  International  Com- 
mittee of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  has  for  years  been  a  religious 
leader  of  world  reputation.  Dr.  Mott's  continuous  ab- 
sence from  the  city,  on  account  of  his  health,  made  a  per- 
sonal interview  impossible  but  his  secretary  has  stated  for 
him  that  Dr.  Mott  left  for  Europe  before  the  final  con- 
sideration of  the  Steel  Investigation  Report  by  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  and  had  never  seen  the  Report  before  its 
publication. 

William  Hiram  Foulkes,  Vice  Chairman. 

On  Dr.  Mott's  resignation  and  departure  for  Europe 
Dr.  Foulkes  became  automatically  Chairman  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  and  acted  in  that  capacity  throughout  all 
the  final  discussion  of  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel 
Strike.  Dr.  Foulkes,  because  of  this  official  position,  was 
the  first  person — other  than  Mr.  Batchelor  and  Mr.  Went 
whom  the  writer  knew  personally — with  whom  the  writer 
discussed  the  question  of  the  publication  of  the  present 
analysis  of  the  Interchurch  Report. 

Dr.  Foulkes  stated  at  once  that  he  had  voted  to  accept 
and  publish  the  Report  at  the  time  because  of  the  very  high 
regard  and  confidence  in  which  he  held  and  still  holds  cer- 
tain members  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry.  During  the 
first  conversation  of  over  two  hours,  many  of  the  points  dis- 
cussed in  the  present  analysis  were  gone  over,  during  which 
Doctor  Foulkes  stated  repeatedly  and  in  no  uncertain 
terms  that  he  had  been  forced  to  change  his  opinion  in  re- 
gard to  the  merits  of  the  Interchurch  Report.  He  particu- 
larly emphasized  the  obvious  influence  on  the  Report  of 
the  men  who  were  employed  as  investigators  and  technical 
experts.  He  also  proposed  a  program  of  action  in  the 
preparation  and  presentation  of  the  present  analysis  which 
has  already  been  discussed  in  the  Introduction  to  the  pres- 
ent volume. 

39 


450      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

In  October  the  complete  original  manuscript  of  the  pres- 
ent analysis  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Foulkes,  and 
one  or  two  brief  conferences  held  on  the  subject.  In  the 
present  section  of  this  original  manuscript  appeared  a  num- 
ber of  quotations  from  Dr.  Foulkes,  taken  from  the  writer's 
memorandum  made  immediately  after  the  first  lengthy 
conversation  with  him.  Early  in  November  the  writer 
received  the  following  letter  from  Dr.  Foulkes: 

"November  i,  1921. 
"My  dear  Mr.  Olds: 

"I  fear  that  my  frequent  absence  from  the  city  may  interfere  with  fur- 
ther conference  with  you  relative  to  the  material  which  you  have  kindly 
submitted  to  me  for  my  review. 

"I  find,  as  I  begin  to  read  your  manuscript,  that  it  deals  with  so  many 
alleged  facts  and  conclusions  which  are  out  of  the  range  of  my  observa- 
tion and  knowledge  that  it  does  not  seem  wise  for  me  to  attempt  to  pass 
any  detailed  judgment  upon  the  statements  you  have  made.  I  do  not 
understand,  indeed,  that  you  desire  to  have  my  general  judgment  but  I 
am  writing  specifically  in  order  that  there  may  be  no  misunderstanding. 

"I  note  also  in  Section  6,  page  13,  your  brief  statement  concerning 
your  impression  of  the  interview  you  had  with  me.  I  do  not  have  quite 
the  same  memory  of  that  conversation  that  you  appear  to  have.  I  do 
not  recall  stating  what  you  have  quoted  me  as  stating  'that  there  is  no 
question  that  the  Steel  Strike  Report  was  put  over  on  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement' — 'that  Radicals  were  undoubtedly  behind  the 
Report  and  turned  the  situation  to  their  own  advantage.'  What  I  re- 
call as  saying  is  that  I  feared  from  what  I  had  heard,  after  the  investi- 
gation had  been  made,  that  some  of  the  actual  investigators  were  not  as 
unprejudiced  as  they  should  have  been  and  that  personally  representing 
one  side  of  the  controversy  their  testimony  was,  therefore,  liable  to  be 
discounted. 

"For  me  to  assert  that  they  are  Radicals,  that  the  Report  was  'put 
over'  and  that  these  men  turned  the  situation  to  their  own  advantage, 
is  a  conclusion  to  which  I  do  not  care  to  be  committed. 
"Very  sincerely  yours, 
"(Signed)    William  Hiram  Foulkes." 

William  B.  Millar,  Secretary. 

Dr.  Millar's  office  stated: 

"  Dr.  Millar  was  laid  aside  by  a  very  serious  illness  at  the  Atlantic  City 
Conference  of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  in  January,  1920,  and 
took  no  further  active  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  Movement." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       451 

and  Dr.  Millar  himself  later  wrote  in  regard  to  the  Steel 
Report : 

"I  was  taken  sick  before  the  report  of  this  Committee  and  never  got 
back  into  the  work  at  all." 

George  M.  Fowles,  Treasurer. 

Dr.  Fowles  was  Treasurer  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  and  a  member  of  other  important  committees 
as  well  as  the  Executive  Committee.  He  is  also  treasurer 
of  the  Methodist  Foreign  Mission  Board.  Dr.  Fowles 
said  at  once : 

"You  can  put  me  down  as  having  voted  for  the  Inter- 
church Report.  I  know  others  are  going  back  on  the  Report 
but  I  voted  for  it  and  I  am  going  to  stand  by  my  guns 
till  it  is  proved  the  Report  is  wrong."  When  asked 
if  he  had  read  the  Report  before  his  vote,  he  replied  that 
he  had.  When  it  was  suggested  to  him,  however,  that  he 
doubtless  had  not  compared  the  evidence  with  the  original 
sources,  and  a  number  of  instances  of  the  manipulation  of 
statistics  and  the  expurgation  of  testimony  that  made  the 
evidence  in  the  Report  very  different  from  the  real  evi- 
dence itself  was  specifically  called  to  his  attention,  he  said 
of  course  he  had  not  gone  into  that  becuase  they  had  hired 
the  best  technical  experts  on  such  subjects — that  they  had 
hired  Robert  Bruere's  Bureau  of  Research  and  that  he  had 
the  greatest  confidence  in  Mr.  Bruere  and  his  organization. 
When  some  of  the  facts  already  stated  herein,  in  regard  to 
Mr.  Bruere's  extreme  radicalism,  were  presented,  he  re- 
plied that  he  himself  didn't  believe  in  radicalism  at  all  and 
that  he  didn't  believe  in  the  autocratic  policies  of  the  Labor 
Unions  either,  but  that  he  had  the  greatest  confidence  in 
Mr.  Bruere. 

Dr.  Fowles  asked  in  turn  whether  it  was  true,  "Yes  or 
No,"  that  the  steel  workers  or  at  least  most  of  them  had  to 
work  12  hours  a  day  and  24  to  36  hours  every  so  often. 
This  impression,  that  practically  all  the  steel  workers  were 
forced  against  their  will  to  work  12  hours  and  frequently 
the  24-hour  day,  seems  to  be  general  among  Interchurch 


452      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

officials  and  is  the  reason  assigned  in  almost  every  case  for 
those  who  did  favor  it,  having  favored  at  the  time  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Interchurch  Report.  When  these  allevia- 
tions were  denied,  Dr.  Fowles  again  said  he  would  not  ac- 
cept such  inaccuracies  as  were  pointed  out  without  going 
over  such  questions  with  Mr.  Bruere  and  getting  his  side  of 
the  case.  ^ 

S.  Earl  Taylor,  General  Secretary. 

Dr.  Taylor  has  been  continually  in  Arizona  during  the 
last  several  years  and  could  not  be  interviewed  It  is  un- 
derstood, however,  that  he  approved  the  Report. 

Robert  Lansing,  Chairman,  General  Committee. 

Mr.  Lansing  was  at  the  time  Secretary  of  State.  During 
the  entire  period  in  which  the  Interchurch  Report  was 
written  and  discussed  Mr.  Lansing  was  in  Paris  as  a  member 
of  the  American  Peace  Commission.  On  June  28,  1919,  the 
date  on  which  it  is  stated  the  Executive  Committee 
"adopted  unanimously"  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel 
Strike,  Mr.  Lansing  was  signing  the  Peace  of  Versailles. 

Fred  B.  Smith,  Vice  Chairman,  General  Committee. 

Mr.  Smith,  who  is  connected  with  the  Johns-Manville 
Company,  stated  that  he  never  read  the  Report  and  knew 
nothing  about  it.  When  certain  of  its  more  glaring  errors 
and  misstatements,  as  pointed  out  in  Part  I  of  the  present 
analysis,  were  called  to  his  attention,  he  stated  that  he 
"regarded  the  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  as  dead  and 
buried"  and  that  he  had  "no  more  interest  in  it  now 
than  in  some  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  in  a  college  library." 

When  it  was  further  pointed  out  to  him  that  irrespective 
of  that  fact  these  statements  had  been  published  to  the 
world  and  were  still  being  circulated  as  being  "adopted 
unanimously  and  approved"  by  the  Executive  Committee 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  he  was  asked  whether  or  not 
he  had  so  approved  and  adopted  them  at  the  time  he  said 

'  Due  to  Dr.  Fowles'  long  absence  abroad  it  has  been  impossible  to 
submit  the  above  to  him  for  his  final  correction  or  approval. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       453 

he  was  a  member  of  the  General  Committee,  not  the  Execu- 
tive Committee.  When  his  name  was  pointed  out  to  him 
as  appearing  on  the  official  list  of  the  Executive  Committee 
he  stated  that  he  remembered  the  question  of  publishing 
the  Report  had  been  brought  up  one  morning  out  at  Cleve- 
land while  members  of  various  committees  were  at  break- 
fast together.  He  said  that  he  personally  at  the  time  was 
discussing  matters  connected  with  another  committee — 
that  the  Interchurch  Report  might  have  been  approved — 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  must  have  been  approved  or  it 
wouldn't  have  been  published.^ 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  was  doubtless 
"approved  unanimously"  by  some  part  of  the  Executive 
Committee  at  the  June  28th  meeting,  which  was  held  at  150 
Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City.  But  that  it  was  not  * '  ap- 
proved unanimously  by  the  Executive  Committee"  is  plain. 

In  the  official  Handbook  of  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 

^  Although  the  writer  had  a  formal  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr. 
Smith,  it  required  repeated  efforts  over  a  period  of  months  to  obtain  the 
interview  of  which  the  above,  written  immediately  after  that  interview 
is  the  substance.  Repeated  efforts  were  also  made  before  publication 
to  submit  the  above  passage  in  regard  to  that  interview  to  Mr.  Smith 
for  his  approval  or  correction.  Finally,  on  the  afternoon  of  Septem- 
ber 13th,  it  was  submitted  to  and  read  by  Mr.  Smith's  secretary 
at  his  office,  271  Madison  Avenue.  His  Secretary  made  an  appoint- 
ment, subject  to  confirmation  by  telephone,  for  the  writer  to  see 
Mr.  Smith  personally  the  following  day.  The  next  morning  (the 
14th)  Mr.  Smith  personally  spoke  to  the  writer  over  the  tele- 
phone. He  asked  the  nature  of  the  statement  and  was  told  that  it 
was  in  substance  that  he  had  not  read  the  Report  before  its  approval  and 
publication.  He  replied  that  he  had  a  copy  in  his  library  "  this  minute  " 
and  had  read  it  and  stated  that  he  would  not  be  quoted  in  any  way  in 
regard  to  the  Interchurch  Report  and  demanded  that  the  writer  agree 
not  to  quote  him  in  any  way  in  regard  to  the  previous  interview.  The 
writer  attempted  to  explain  the  reason  for,  and  the  nature  of,  the  quota- 
tion but  Mr.  Smith  interrupted  insisting  that  the  former  interview  was  a 
private  conversation  which  the  writer  had  no  right  to  publish  without 
his  permission  and  stated  that  if  he  was  quoted  in  any  way,  shape  or 
manner,  he  would  "make  a  noise  that  you  can  hear  from  here  to  Fifth 
Avenue."    The  writer  insisted  that  the  matter  was  not  of  a  private  na- 


454      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

ment  (page  109)  the  names  of  the  above  seven  gentlemen 
are  prominently  listed  down  the  center  of  the  page 
with  their  full  titles.  Obviously  it  was  the  national 
and  international  standing  of  certain  of  these  gentlemen 
which  made  their  supposed  "unanimous  approval"  of 
the  Report  a  big  factor  in  its  general  acceptance.  Their 
statements  at  this  time  quoted  above  are  correspondingly 
significant. 

The  sixteen  other  members  of  the  Executive  Committee, 
the  official  Handbook  lists  in  double  columns  and  without 
titles  and  in  alphabetical  order.  These  men  and  women, 
however,  are  so  widely  scattered  as  to  address,  and  investi- 
gation by  correspondence  on  such  a  subject  is  so  unsatisfac- 
tory, that  no  effort  has  been  made  to  ascertain  how  much 
further  less  than  "unanimous"  the  approval  of  the  Inter- 
church  Report  by  all  the  Executive  Committee  actually 
was. 

Moreover,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  Foreword  to  the 
Second  Volume,  published  from  three  to  six  months  after 
the  foregoing  interviews  had  been  had  and  brought  to  the 

ttire  and  did  not  concern  merely  Mr.  Smith's  personal  wishes,  but  that 
on  the  contrary,  as  Mr.  Smith  had  already  committed  himself  or  allowed 
himself  to  be  committed  as  officially  supporting  the  subject  matter  of 
the  Interchurch  Report  and  approving  its  wide  publicity,  and  as  the 
alleged  unanimous  approval  of  Mr.  Smith's  committee  had  been  used  as 
part  of  that  publicity,  .  .  .  The  writer  was  not  allowed  to  finish  but 
was  interrupted  with  the  statement  that  he  could  doubtless  tmderstand 
plain  English  and  that  he  (Mr.  Smith)  was  stating  in  plain  English  that 
he  was  not  to  be  quoted  in  any  way,  shape  or  manner  and  that  if  the 
writer  did  quote  him  he  would  get  into  trouble. 

Mr.  Tyler  Dennett  later  talked  to  Mr.  Smith  in  regard  to  modifying 
this  statement  for  publication  and  at  Mr.  Detmett's  suggestion  the  au- 
thor made  another  but  unsuccessful  attempt  to  see  Mr.  Smith.  The 
author  regrets  publishing  a  statement  which  obviously  Mr.  Smith  made 
without  due  consideration.  He  has  made  every  effort  to  have  it 
modified  by  Mr.  Smith's  more  careful  recollection.  Under  the  cir- 
cumstance, however,  of  Mr.  Smith's  refusal  to  modify  it  and  his  threat 
the  author  is  left  no  alternative  but  to  publish  the  statement  as 
originally  given. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       455 

attention  of  the  present  Interchurch  Executives,  the  Inter- 
church  Report  changes  its  statement  that  it  "was  adopted 
unanimously  by  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Interchurch 
Movement"  to  the  statement  that  "at  its  session  of  June 
28th  the  Steel  Report  was  adopted  unanimously  by  the 
Executive  Committee,  all  members  having  been  informed  of 
the  calendar  for  the  day." 

The  final  preparation  of  the  Interchurch  Report  for  pub- 
lication was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  James  E.  Craig 
and  "another  gentleman,"  acting  imder  the  direction  of 
Dr.  Poling,  the  understanding  being,  according  to  Mr. 
Craig,  that  Dr.  Poling  was  to  decide  any  matters  on  which 
he  (Craig)  and  the  "second  gentleman"  could  not  agree. 
There  were  certain  matters  in  connection  with  this  final 
editing  on  which  obviously  the  greatest  secrecy  was  en- 
joined. Mr.  Craig  was  entirely  willing  to  state  his  own 
connection  and  that  of  Dr.  Poling  with  the  work  but 
he  would  not  state  for  publication  the  name  of  the 
"second  gentleman,"  without  the  permission  of  Dr. 
Cory,  which  permission  though  several  times  asked  for 
was  not  given. 

This  second  joint  final  editor  of  the  Interchurch  Report 
was  Mr.  Robert  W.  Bruere. 


SUMMARY  OF  PART  TWO 

From  a  careful  analysis  then  of  the  chief  circumstances 
which  led  up  to  the  Investigation  of  the  steel  strike  by  the 
Interchurch  World  Movement  and  its  Report  on  that  strike, 
these  facts  appear : 

First:  The  Interchurch  World  Movement  was  projected 
at  a  time  immediately  following  a  great  world  crisis  in  which 
the  minds  of  a  great  proportion  of  all  peoples  were  in  a 
particularly  abnormal  state.  It  was  inevitable  that  many 
extreme  theories  should  be  advanced  and  agitated  in  such  a 
movement  in  1919. 

Second:  The  proposition  that  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  should  especially  and  directly  interest  itself  in 
the  industrial  problems  of  the  day,  and  interest  itself  partic- 
vilarly  in  the  great  human  problem  of  the  relation  between 
capital  and  labor,  is  entirely  natural  and  the  decision  to 
establish  a  special  Department  of  Industrial  Relations  to 
study  such  problems  was  entirely  logical  even  though  the 
basis  on  which  this  department  was  organized  did  not  prove 
to  be  sound  or  wise. 

Third:  Because  industrial  relations  and  particularly 
relations  between  employer  and  labor  constitute  the  point 
at  which  practically  all  radicals  and  revolutionary  theorists 
insist  our  basic  institutions  should  be  changed  and  our 
economic  system  be  revolutionized,  it  was  inevitable  that  all 
such  radicals  and  theorists  should  at  once  concentrate  their 
interest  and  attention  on  this  particular  phase  of  proposed 
Interchiirch  activities. 

456 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       457 

Fourth:  The  first  prominent  activity  of  the  Department 
of  Industrial  Relations  was  the  calling  of  a  special  meeting 
at  Hotel  Pennsylvania  to  consider  industrial  problems,  at 
which  the  most  important  speakers  were  Glen  E.  Plumb,  the 
advocate  of  government  ownership  of  railroads;  John 
Walker,  President  of  the  Illinois  Federation  of  Labor;  Mr. 
Julius  Hecker  whose  passports  were  cancelled  by  the  State 
Department  because  of  extreme  pro-Bolshevistic  activities, 
and  the  notorious  Mr.  Frederick  C.  Howe  who  resigned  as 
Commissioner  of  Immigration  after  he  had  been  investi- 
gated and  strongly  condemned  by  a  Congressional  committee 
for  his  radical  activities. 

This  meeting  at  Hotel  Pennsylvania  voted  to  condemn 
the  steel  companies  and  then  voted  to  appoint  a  special 
committee  to  investigate  the  steel  strike.  It  was  only  after 
it  had  been  pointed  out  that  the  vote  to  condemn  might 
prejudice  the  acceptance  of  the  verdict  of  the  investigation 
that  the  vote  to  condemn  was  rescinded  and  ordered 
stricken  from  the  minutes.  This  meeting  also  appointed  a 
committee,  ' '  to  formulate  and  give  expression  to  principles 
and  policies  of  industrial  relationships";  and  adopted  the 
report  or  "Findings"  of  this  Committee  which  are  clearly 
capable  of  being  interpreted  as  radical. 

Fifth:  There  is  no  question  however  that  at  least  some 
effort  was  made  by  other  officials  of  the  Interchurch  Move- 
ment to  counteract  this  tendency  towards  radicalism. 
Thru  their  efforts  the  "Findings"  adopted  by  the  Hotel 
Pennsylvania  meeting  were  considerably  softened  before 
they  were  published  and  in  the  appointment  of  the  special 
Commission  of  Inquiry  to  investigate  the  steel  strike  the 
Executive  Committee  appointed  members,  against  most  of 
whom  no  charges  of  real  radicalism  can  be  successfully 
argued. 

Sixth:  A  far  more  important  point  however  than  the 
particular  shade  of  belief  which  may  or  may  not  have 
influenced  this  Commission  of  Inquiry  in  their  investigation 
of  the  steel  strike  is  the  fact  that  the  Commission  consisted 


458      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

predominantly  of  men  who  not  only  had  had  no  experience 
with  industrial  problems  but  whose  whole  experience  had 
been  in  spiritual  leadership,  in  enthusing  and  inspiring  men's 
minds  and  imaginations — which  experience  requires  a 
supreme  development  of  quite  opposite  mental  and 
emotional  qualities  from  those  required  for  a  careful  analysis 
of  intricate  material  facts  or  a  judicial  determination  of  the 
merits  of  the  complicated  interplay  of  politics  which  char- 
acterize any  great  industrial  conflict.  The  fact  that  the 
Commission  of  Inquiry  immediately  employed,  or  had 
employed  for  them,  all  the  outside  "technical  assistance" — 
the  fact  that  except  for  the  evidence  accumulated  in  the 
comparatively  few  days  they  themselves  spent  in  the  strike 
area,  the  evidence  on  which  they  based  their  conclusions 
was  prepared  and  submitted  to  them  by  their  various  "tech- 
nical assistants,"  indicates  their  own  wise  realization  of 
the  importance  of  a  very  different  kind  of  experience  than 
their  own.  The  further  fact  that  it  must  be  regarded  as 
impossible  that  this  Commission  of  Inquiry  itself  could 
have  ingeniously  expurgated  printed  testimony  and  cleverly 
manipulated  and  fabricated  statistics  to  attempt  to  show 
the  opposite  of  the  actual  truth  indicates  how  much  they 
must  have  relied  on  outside  "technical  assistants." 

Seventh:  There  can  be  no  question  however  of  the  radical- 
ism of  all  the  most  important  outside  "technical  assistants." 
The  dominant  members  of  the  staff  of  field  investigators 
have  conspicuous  public  records  as  radicals.  They  are 
found  immediately  on  investigation  to  be  friends  and 
associates  of  Foster — fellow- workers  with  Roger  Baldwin 
for  the  type  of  "civil  liberties"  campaign  for  attempting  to 
carry  out  which  he  served  a  year  in  prison — officially  con- 
nected with  the  Rand  School — prominent  official  members 
of  committees  or  organizations  in  which  they  are  fellow- 
workers  with  other  prominent  radical  leaders — and  chiefly 
officially  engaged  in  furthering  the  new  type  of  revolution- 
ary unionism  represented  by  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 
Workers  to  which  the  recent  Soviet  International  at  Mos- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       459 

cow  has  transferred  the  former  I.  W.  W.  leadership  in  the 
American  Radical  Movement. 

Eighth:  There  seems  little  question  that  this  type  of 
outside  "technical  assistance"  not  merely  furnished  the 
detailed  technical  data  but  so  arranged  the  evidence — ^from 
which  one  such  outside  "technical  assistant,"  who  was 
Secretary  of  the  Commission,  wrote  the  Report — that  the 
Commission  of  Inquiry,  with  its  own  lack  of  experience  in 
such  matters  and  its  confidence  in  its  outside  "technical 
assistants,"  accepted  and  approved  this  evidence  and  later 
accepted  and  approved  the  Report  in  entire  good  faith. 

Ninth:  Two  field  investigators,  both  prominent  radicals 
and  notoriously  committed  to  Labor's  side  on  all  modem 
industrial  questions,  initiated  the  actual  investigation. 

Mr.  Soule  states  that  his  plans  contemplated  an  entirely 
impartial  investigation  of  the  facts  but  that  the  steel  com- 
panies would  not  cooperate  with  him  by  giving  him  the 
facts.  It  is  a  matter  of  public  record  however,  as  already 
shown  in  detail,  that  not  only  Mr.  Soule  but  his  assistant 
Mr.  Saposs  both  condemn  the  modern  industrial  system 
and  believe  that  industry  ought  to  be  turned  over  to  the 
workers.  These  men  then  with  this  point  of  view,  and 
working  almost  exclusively  with  the  strikers  not  only 
themselves  prepared  much  of  the  evidence,  but  obvi- 
ously set  the  stage  for  the  obtaining  of  such  evidence  as 
the  Commission  itself  obtained  when  it  visited  the  strike 
area. 

Tenth:  Such  investigation  as  was  made  by  the  Commis- 
sion itself  in  the  strike  area  consisted  chiefly  of: 

A.  Conversations  held  with  steel  officials  in  the  offices  of 
the  officials — because  "the  officers  refused  to  attend  the 
formal  '  Hearings  *  set  up  by  the  Interchurch  Commission ' ' 
— of  which  conversations  stenographic  reports  were  not 
permitted  and  from  which  the  Commissioners  seem  to  have 
got  little  satisfaction,  and  which  doubtless  tended  to  pre- 
judice them  still  further  against  the  steel  companies;  and 

B.  The  "Hearings"  in  which  strike  leaders   and  wit- 


46o      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

nesses  for  the  strike  leaders  furnished  the  chief  evidence  or 
at  least  practically  the  only  evidence  used. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  such  "Hearings"  were  held 
in  the  midst  of  a  bitter  industrial  conflict  when  the  minds 
of  all  the  parties  involved  were  warped  by  the  most  extreme 
partisanship.  Under  such  circumstances  it  would  have 
required  a  very  great  degree  of  judicial  impartiality  and 
judicial  experience  and  very  careful  cross-examination  to 
get  at  the  real  facts.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
Commission's  own  investigators  in  whom  it  showed  it 
had  the  most  implicit  confidence  but  who  were  entirely 
committed  to  labor's  side  and  who  had  been  working  on  the 
closest  most  friendly  terms  with  the  strike  leaders — were 
doubtless  the  men  who  produced  the  witnesses  before  the 
Commission.  Except  for  possibly  three  statements,  all  the 
"rock-bottom  affidavits,"  on  which  the  Commission  admits 
it  formed  its  judgments  and  on  which  the  Report  was 
written,  were,  as  far  as  they  have  been  published,  the  pro- 
ducts either  of  these  outside  investigators  or  of  their 
notorious  fellow-radical,  James  H.  Maurer. 

Eleventh:  Again  during  the  conferences  in  New  York 
when  all  the  evidence  that  had  been  collected  was  gone  over, 
as  Mr.  Coleman  describes,  in  order  to  "find  out  where 
(they)  were  coming  out "  the  situation  held  the  same  poten- 
tialities and  doubtless  worked  out  in  exactly  the  same  way. 

As  the  great  mass  of  evidence — hundreds  of  affidavits, 
statements,  excerpts  of  testimony,  figures  and  tables — was 
being  considered  and  passed  on  by  the  Commission,  it  was 
obviously  the  simplest  matter  for  whatever  "technical 
assistant"  prepared  the  cleverly  manipulated  tables  or  the 
carefully  expurgated  evidence  to  have  such  matter  approved 
and  its  conclusions  accepted.  For  doubtless  already  largely 
convinced  in  favor  of  the  strikers  by  the  overwhelming 
proportion  of  testimony  presented  by  the  strikers  before 
their  "  Hearings  "  in  the  strike  area,  it  was  perhaps  not  to  be 
expected  that  men  without  wide  experience  in  analyzing 
evidence  should  have  even  thought,  when  tables  of  statistics 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       461 

were  presented  to  them  by  their  own  supposed  experts,  to 
take  the  time  and  trouble  to  go  back  of  those  tables  and 
statistics  to  the  sources  from  which  they  came  or  to  have 
compared  excerpts  of  testimony  similarly  submitted  with 
the  full  contexts  of  the  original,  or  have  done  otherwise  than 
accept  at  face  value  the  large  amount  of  various  "evidence " 
presented  to  them. 

Twelfth:  On  the  basis  of  this  evidence  which  may  thus 
easily  have  led  the  Commission  of  Inquiry,  as  Mr.  Coleman 
states,  to  unanimous  agreement  as  to  at  least  the  general 
nature  of  the  Report,  Mr.  Blankenhom,  a  conspicuous  pro- 
nounced radical,  who  was  Secretary  to  the  Commission, 
wrote  the  Report  itself,  including  a  far  greater  amount  of 
insinuations,  misleading  statements  and  false  implications 
than  even  the  present  Report  contains. 

Thirteenth:  After  the  Report  was  thus  written  and  8 
typewritten  copies  had  been  circulated  among  the  Com- 
missioners and  other  members  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement,  the  Report  was  turned  over  to  Mr.  Stanley 
Went  "to  edit  and  take  out  the  appearance  of  bias"; this 
editing  however  consisted  chiefly  merely  of  the  striking  out 
of  certain  more  flagrant,  obviously  unwarrantable  state- 
ments. In  his  official  memorandimi  of  June  17th  with 
which  he  returned  the  edited  manuscript,  Mr.  Went 
strongly  condemned  the  obvious  bias  of  the  whole  Report. 

Fourteenth:  The  ' '  Findings, ' '  a  group  of  milder  and  more 
generalized  conclusions,  were  in  the  meantime  added  by  a 
sub-committee.  On  May  loth  these  added  "Findings" 
were  approved  by  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  and  the  Re- 
port turned  over  to  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Inter- 
church World  Movement  for  its  approval.  After  six  weeks, 
during  which,  according  to  all  reports,  there  was  much 
very  serious  argimient  as  to  whether  or  not  the  Report 
should  be  published,  the  Report  itself  says  it  was  "unani- 
mously approved"  by  the  Executive  Committee. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  however  of  the  7  most  featured  and 
doubtless  leading  members  of  the  Executive  Committee, 


462      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

four  not  only  never  approved  the  Report  but  never  read 
or  even  saw  it  before  it  was  published,  and  at  least  one  more 
approved  it  without  reading  it.  The  Report  was  then 
finally  edited  and  prepared  for  publication  by  Mr.  James 
E.  Craig  and  Mr.  Robert  W.  Bruere. 

Fifteenth:  Nothing  could  be  plainer  than  the  dominant 
influence  in  the  Interchurch  investigation  and  Report  of 
this  notorious  radical  Robert  W.  Bruere — whose  record  is 
described  on  pages  396  to  399  of  the  present  analysis — 
member  of  the  "Federated  Press"  which  secret  reports 
to  Moscow  authorities,  recently  seized  by  the  govern- 
ment, show  is  backed  by  the  No.  i,  unlawful  branch  of 
the  ultra-revolutionary  Communist  Party,  etc.,  etc.  Mr. 
Bruere  was  Superintendent  of  Research  of  the  Industrial 
Department  of  the  Interchurch  Movement,  which  depart- 
ment initiated  the  Steel  Strike  investigation.  He  was 
Director  of  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research  whose  name 
is  formally  signed  to  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  title 
page  as  technical  assistants.  The  "staff  of  field  investiga- 
tors," on  the  results  of  whose  "investigations"  the  Inter- 
church Report  is  stated  to  be  largely  based,  and  is  provably 
chiefly  based,  worked  under  a  "field  director"  (Mr. 
Blankenhorn)   "from  the  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research.'' 

This  same  employee  or  partner  of  Mr.  Bruere,  as  "Secre- 
tary to  the  Commission,"  actually  wrote  the  Interchurch 
Report.  Finally  after  the  first  editor  selected  by  the  Inter- 
church officials  had  strongly  condemned  the  "obvious  bias" 
of  the  Report,  the  Report  was  turned  over  for  final  editing 
to  Mr.  Craig,  acting  only  as  a  copy  editor,  and  Mr.  Robert 
W.  Bruere. 

Moreover,  when  a  year  and  a  half  after  the  Interchurch 
Movement  was  forced  by  its  financial  failure  to  abandon 
the  fundamental  religious  work  for  which  it  was  created 
the  second  Interchurch  Report  nevertheless  appeared, 
this  volume  is  stated  in  its  own  preface  to  be  edited  by  and 
"seen  through  the  Press"  by  the  Bruere-Blankenhom 
Bureau  of  Industrial  Research. 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       463 

The  basic  aim  of  Part  Two  of  the  present  analysis  is,  as 
stated,  to  determine  what  men  and  interests  are  responsible 
for  the  Interchurch  Report  being  as  it  is  and  what  it  is — 
not  because  a  determination  of  such  facts  will  in  any  way 
modify  conclusions  as  to  the  Report  itself  but  in  order  that 
men  who  are  not  actually  responsible  may  not  be  made  to 
appear  responsible  for  the  Report. 

It  has  already  been  emphasized  that  the  details  in  regard 
to  the  preparation  of  the  Report  are  not  always  clear  or 
imdisputed.  But  while  for  reasons  emphasized  in  the 
"afterword"  of  the  present  volume,  such  details  are  de- 
sirable, and  an  effort  has  therefore  been  made  to  present 
them  as  fully  and  clearly  as  has,  under  the  circumstances, 
been  possible,  all  such  details  may  be  entirely  dispensed 
with  and  it  still  can  be  established  beyond  reasonable  doubt 
that  neither  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  nor  the 
Interchurch  Commission  of  Inquiry  are  more  than  nega- 
tively responsible  for  the  Interchurch  Report  being  the  kind 
of  document  it  provably  is. 

For,  irrespective  of  all  such  details,  these  main  facts 
stand  out. 

I.  The  nature  of  the  Interchurch  Report  itself  as 
analyzed  herein. 

II.  The  type  of  men  who  constituted  the  Interchurch 
Commission  of  Inquiry. 

III.  The  fact  that  this  Commission  employed  or  had 
employed  for  them,  certain  outside  "technical"  advisers, 
assistants  and  "investigators";  the  fact  as  to  who  these 
men  were, — which  is  a  matter  of  published  Interchurch 
record;  and  the  facts  as  to  what  the  most  prominent  of 
these  men  are — which  is  a  matter  of  widespread  public 
record. 

Given  merely  these  facts,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  only  one  of  two  conclusions  is  reasonably  possible. 
Either: 

First:  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  itself  was  actually  the 
creator  of  the  Report — itself  collected  the  evidence,  weighed 


464      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

the  evidence,  and  prepared  the  evidence  for  submission  to 
the  public  in  the  Report,  and  the  various  "technical 
experts"  actually  played  only  a  subordinate  r61e  in  the 
investigations,  and  Mr.  Blankenhorn,  as  author,  merely  did 
the  mechanical  work  of  assembling  and  putting  together 
the  evidence  and  expressing  the  point  of  view  for  which  the 
Commission  itself  is  actually  responsible. 

If  this  is  true  then  these  nine  nationally  prominent 
Christian  leaders  who  made  up  the  Commission  of  Inquiry, 
who  were  appointed  to  and  state  that  they  did  make  an 
impartial  investigation,  not  only  deliberately  refused  to 
consider  all  the  conspicuous  evidence  on  one  side — not  only 
warped  much  general  evidence  by  a  careful  expurgation  of 
all  the  facts  that  were  not  favorable  to  one  side — ^not  only 
filled  the  Report  with  misleading  insinuations  and  mis- 
leading phraseology  in  order  to  give  false  impressions  that 
no  twisting  of  the  real  facts  could  have  given,  but  also  they 
either  possessed,  or  gained  within  a  comparatively  few 
weeks'  time,  an  intimate  technical  knowledge  of  the  various 
philosophies  and  aims  of  the  various  radical  schools,  includ- 
ing a  fluent  knowledge  of  technical  radical  phraseology  and 
slang,  and  finally  in  the  same  comparatively  few  weeks  they 
gained  such  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  technicalities  of 
wage  rates  and  classifications  and  schedules  of  working 
hours  throughout  industry,  and  a  vast  variety  of  similar 
highly  specialized  technical  knowledge,  that  they  could  and 
did  separate  and  manipulate  and  otherwise  falsify  and 
fabricate  intricate  statistics  so  cleverly  as  to  make  them 
seem  to  show  the  opposite  of  what  the  figures  really  do 
show. 

Such  a  conclusion  is  obviously  beyond  the  realm  of 
reasonable  possibility. 

The  obvious  and  only  alternative  to  this  conclusion, 
is  the  conclusion  adduced  from  the  known  facts  by  the 
present  analysis,  as  follows: 

Second:  That  the  "technical  assistants"  whether  or  not 
the  Commission  of  Inquiry  knew  it  at  the  time  or  realize  it 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       465 

now,  were  chiefly  made  up  of  conspicuous  radicals  entirely 
committed  in  advance  to  one  side  of  any  labor  controversy 
and  always  under  all  circumstances  working  for  one  end  in 
industry; 

— that  these  technical  advisers,  having  gone  into  the 
strike  area  in  advance  and  working  with  the  strike  leaders, 
either  deliberately  or  because  of  inherent  bias,  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  evidence  only  or 
chiefly  favorable  to  the  strikers,  which  together  with  the 
fact  that  the  steel  officials  refused  to  consider  this  investi- 
gation seriously,  resulted  in  bringing  only  one  side  of  the 
case  to  the  Commission's  attention; 

— that  when  the  great  mass  of  evidence  thus  collected 
by  the  technical  advisers  and  the  Commission  of  Inquiry 
in  the  field  together  with  tables  and  statistics  which  were 
compiled  by  these  same  or  other  technical  advisers  was 
assembled  for  analysis  for  a  final  determination  of  the 
Report,  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  because  of  their  con- 
fidence in  their  technical  advisers  never  thought  of  going 
back  of  the  testimony  and  the  facts  and  tables  as  sub- 
mitted, to  analyze  and  check  them  with  their  original 
sources  but  accepted  such  evidence  at  its  face  value  and 
formed  final  conclusions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Report 
accordingly; 

— that,  having  thus  been  led  to  reach  their  conclusions  as 
to  the  general  nature  of  the  Report,  the  Commission  of 
Inquiry  easily  accepted  those  conclusions  substantially  as 
Mr.  Blankenhom  stated  them  in  the  Report ; 

— that  such  directors  or  other  members  of  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  as  approved  the  Interchurch  Report,  did 
so,  because  they  too,  perhaps  naturally  under  the  circum- 
stances, accepted  the  alleged  evidence  it  contained  at  face 
value  and  because  also  of  their  confidence  in  the  Commis- 
sion of  Inqiury; 

— that  therefore,  irrespective  of  what  the  Commissioners 
of  Inquiry  may  honestly  believe,  the  whole  investigation 
and  Report,  far  from  being  actually  the  product  of  con- 


466       REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE 

scientious  Christian  thinking,  was  the  result  of  the  flagrant 
manipulation  of  circumstances  and  evidence  by  the  Com- 
mission's radical  "technical"  advisers  and  assistants  and 
"investigators." 


AFTERWORD 

The  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike  signed  as  it  is 
by  nine  prominent  religious  leaders  and  underwritten  by  the 
Interchurch  World  Movement,  has  undoubtedly  been 
widely  accepted  at  substantially  its  face  value,  by  a  large 
part  not  merely  of  the  religious  world,  but  also  of  the  general 
public.  Numerous  reviews  of  it  have  appeared  in  the  public 
press  in  which  the  reviewers,  although  discounting  those 
portions  dealing  with  facts  within  their  particular  knowl- 
edge, have  nevertheless  accepted  the  Report  in  general  at 
its  face  value.  Inquiry  has  revealed  that  many  statis- 
ticians, economists  and  other  men  of  high  professional 
standing,  though  conscious  of  many  inaccuracies  and  fal- 
lacies in  the  Report,  have  nevertheless  been  much  impressed 
by  the  way  its  conclusions  are  seemingly  supported  by  facts 
and  statistics  alleged  to  be  from  authoritative  sources. 
These  gentlemen,  impressed  by  the  statistical  knowledge 
and  methods  displayed  by  the  Report,  have  accepted  many 
of  its  conclusions  accordingly.  *  This  at  least  partial  accept- 
ance of  the  Report  by  such  competent  authorities  indicates 
the  probability,  repeatedly  emphasized  by  some  of  those 
connected  with  the  preparation  of  the  Report,  that  the 
Report  is  widely  accepted  and  used  by  educational  institu- 
tions as  a  text-book  on  modem  industrial  problems.  These 
facts  alone  amply  justify  the  publication  of  the  present 
analysis. 

Beyond  all  facts  as  to  the  merits  of  the  Interchurch  Re- 
port itself,  however,  or  as  to  its  use,  is  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
representative  doomient — a  conspicuous  typical  example  of 

» There  have,  however,  been  several  very  significant  exceptions. 

467 


468      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

a  new  type  of  propaganda  which  is  being  more  and  more 
widely  used  and  whose  motives  and  methods  as  well  as 
whose  merits  should  therefore  at  least  be  recognized  arid 
understood  by  the  public. 

The  application  of  artificial  power  to  the  production  of 
the  world's  needs  during  the  last  140  years  has  worked  as- 
tonishing changes.  In  1340  the  population  of  England  and 
Wales  was  about  4,000,000.  In  the  following  four  centuries 
it  increased  to  about  6,000,000  or  about  50%.  But  in  the 
next  one  and  a  half  centuries  under  the  modem  industrial 
system  it  increased  to  32,000,000  or  500%.  In  the  one 
thousand  years  between  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon  the 
population  of  what  is  modem  Germany  reached  24,000,000. 
In  one  hundred  years  under  the  industrial  system  it  jumped 
to  70,000,000.  In  the  two  centuries  before  1810  our  own 
population  reached  10,000,000.  One  century  of  industrialism 
permitted  the  multiplication  of  this  to  110,000,000. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  in  terms  of  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  wheat  flour,  the  American  skilled  worker 
today  receives  three  times  as  much  as  he  did  in  1850.  As 
regards  comparative  housing  conditions,  so  liberal  an  his- 
torian as  Mr.  Hendrik  Van  Loon  emphasizes  dramatically 
what  any  competent  history  will  show,  that  the  European 
of  the  pre-industrialism  period  lived  "in  miserable  hovels 
compared  to  which  a  modern  tenement  stands  forth  as  a 
luxurious  palace."  That  industrialism  has  made  common- 
place among  every  class  of  our  population  innumerable 
contrivances  of  comfort  undreamed  of  in  the  days  of  our 
forefathers  is  known  to  every  child  who  has  listened  at  the 
knees  of  his  grandfather.  Our  ever  increasing  educational 
institutions,  hospitals,  libraries,  newspapers,  facilities  for 
travel  and  other  broadly  human  advantages  which  those 
in  every  walk  of  life  enjoy  today,  have  been  made  possible 
chiefly  by  the  surplus  of  capital  and  extra  leisure  which  the 
modem  industrial  system  has  created. 

But  principles  of  social  conduct  and  habits  of  thought 
move  slowly.    They  have  not  changed  with  the  phenomenal 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       469 

rapidity  with  which  industriaHsm  has  changed  actual  living 
conditions.  Moreover  the  fundamental,  and  by  and  large 
the  valuable  human  characteristic  persists  that  the  more 
most  people  get  the  more  they  want.  The  very  extent, 
therefore,  to  which  the  industrial  system  has  advanced, 
improved  and  tended  to  equalize  living  standards,  seems 
only  to  have  intensified  the  demand  that  this  advanced 
improvement  and  equalization  shall  be  carried  on  still  more 
rapidly.  The  problems  to  which  these  facts  have  given  rise 
are  becoming  our  dominant  political  issues  today.  The 
principles  of  liberty  and  the  rules  of  conduct  anciently 
established  and  cherished  by  many  generations,  may  or 
may  not  be  entirely  sufficient  to  solve  all  such  problems. 
There  justly  exists  much  difference  of  opinion  upon  this 
point.  So  far  as  such  opinions  are  honestly  held,  so  far  as 
we  frankly  face  the  problem  of  how  far  we  can  afford  to 
endanger  the  principles  upon  which  we  have  obtained  our 
present  real  advantages,  and  so  far  as  arguments  advanced 
in  support  of  these  opinions  are  based  on  honest  interpreta- 
tion of  known  facts,  all  such  opinions  may  prove  of  con- 
structive value.  But  many  opinions  as  to  the  n^ed  of  fimda- 
mental  changes  to-day,  whether  honestly  held  or  not,  are 
certainly  not  being  advanced  on  their  merits.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  are  adroitly  presented  and  covertly  advanced  to 
hide  the  fact  that  they  actually  involve  the  "burning  of  the 
bam  to  get  rid  of  the  rats  " — their  sponsors  cherishing  the 
hope  that  the  fire  can  be  well  started  before  those  whose 
assistance  is  being  sought  in  setting  it  are  aware  of  what  they 
are  helping  to  do. 

Radical  criticism  of  industrialism  undoubtedly  takes  its 
initial  impetus  from  Carl  Marx,  the  father  of  modem  social- 
ism. Marx  made  the  definite  and  sweeping  prediction  that 
the  industrial  system  would  inevitably  operate  to  reduce  the 
living  standard  of  all  workers  until  it  was  established  on  a 
mere  subsistence  level  where  it  would  be  arbitrarily  main- 
tained. Upon  this  prediction  Marx  built  an  elaborate 
theory  for  the  revolutionization  of  the  ownership  and 


470      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

management  of  all  industry  and  of  all  government.  But 
his  theory  still  contemplated  the  principle  of  government  by 
majority  in  the  interests  of  all.  The  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  the  industrial  system  has  completely  refuted  the 
fundamental  prediction  of  Marx.  With  the  passing  of  the 
premise  of  his  prediction  has  passed  Marxian  idealism  and 
the  notion  of  a  democratic  administration  of  industry  by 
the  state  in  the  interests  of  all  the  citizens.  Modem  radical- 
ism is  advocating  the  seizure  without  compensation  of  the 
different  industrial  units  by  the  particular  workers  engaged 
and  their  operation  in  the  interests  of  those  workers.  Under 
this  system  the  industry,  not  the  community,  becomes  the 
unit  of  interest ;  men  are  divided  against  each  other  accord- 
ing to  their  occupations  rather  than  bound  together  accord- 
ing to  the  interests  of  the  community  in  which  they  live, 
and  the  only  persons  who  are  permitted  to  express  an  opinion, 
to  vote  or  to  receive  consideration,  are  the  manual  workers 
and  their  self-constituted  attorneys  and  representatives. 

No  one  realizes  more  clearly  than  the  radicals  that  no 
majority  of  Americans  would  ever  adopt  or  willingly  permit 
such  a  programme  of  plunder  and  class  chauvinism  to  be 
carried  out.  Radicalism's  programme,  therefore,  is  ad- 
mittedly based  on  force  strategically  applied  by  a  united 
minority  against  a  majority  they  hope  to  deceive  and  divide. 
The  primary  effort  of  radicalism, — to  build  its  active  fight- 
ing minority  of  industrial  workers  through  capitalizing 
discontent,  preaching  class  hatred,  appealing  to  envy  and 
greed  and  maligning  public  officials  and  courts  and  govern- 
ment,— is  more  or  less  open  and  recognized.  Its  secondary 
effort,  however,  to  deceive  and  disunite  the  general  public, 
to  confuse  economic  and  political  issues  and  to  disrupt  or 
dissipate  every  constructive  economic  effort  depends  for  its 
success  upon  its  more  or  less  complete  concealment.  ^ 

»The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Third  International  in  1921  re- 
aiBrmed  the  principle: 

"  We  talk  in  two  languages,  that  which  we  talkto  the  bourgoisie  we  fool 
them  with,  that  which  we  talk  to  the  world  proletariat  is  the  truth." 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       471 

For  the  achievement,  therefore,  of  its  secondary  effort, 
radicalism  changes  its  appearance  and  appeal — its  red  be- 
comes pink  or  "merely  liberal"  and  its  programme  of  hate 
and  plunder  becomes  one  of  "sympathy"  and  "idealism." 
In  this  guise  radicalism  has  created  various  and  widely 
distributed  organizations  to  carry  its  propaganda  to  the 
general  public.  Among  the  most  prominent  of  these  are 
the  Rand  School  of  Social  Science,  the  Bureau  of  Industrial 
Research,  organized  by  Mr.  Robert  W.  Bruere,  a  teacher 
of  literature  in  the  Rand  School  until  this  school  was 
being  made  conspicuous  through  government  attack;  the 
American  Civil  Liberties  Union,  posing  as  interested  merely 
in  protecting  the  constitutional  guarantees  of  freedom  of 
speech  and  assemblage  but  actually  radicalism's  legal 
department  and  one  of  its  most  important  and  effective 
propaganda  organizations.  The  function  of  these  and 
similar  bureaus,  schools  and  leagues  is  to  prepare  "statis- 
tics," "data,"  "legal"  arguments  and  other  allegedly  scien- 
tific material  for  the  use  of  radical  propagandists. 

But  the  usefulness  of  such  organizations  wears  off  as  time 
reveals  their  true  nature.  Radicalism  therefore,  has  more 
recently  resorted  to  the  device  of  applying  to  existing  social 
and  economic  institutions  the  programme  already  applied 
to  craft  unionism  of  "boring  from  within,"  in  the  attempt 
to  get  such  control  of  non-radical  organizations  as  will  per- 
mit their  use  as  media  for  radical  propaganda. 

Radical  "boring  from  within"  does  not,  of  course,  mean 
the  attempt  to  convert  all  the  members  of  the  organization 
subjected  to  this  operation  to  the  extreme  radicalism  of  the 
"borers."  Its  purpose  is  generally  served  if  it  can  tinge 
enough  members  or  officials  with  sufficient  "liberalism,"  or 
sufficiently  play  upon  their  idealism  or  sentimentalism  to 
secure  their  support  or  acquiescence  in  furnishing  the  mem- 
bers of  the  organization  and  their  followers  with  such  propa- 
ganda as  the  borers  in  each  case  deem  wise.  In  this  way 
radicalism's  operations  are  better  cloaked,  while  it  obtains 
what  support  it  needs  from  great  groups  of  individuals 


472      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

who  would  not  conceivably  work  for  or  accept  its  basic 
program. 

The  means  by  which  such  "boring"  is  instituted  and 
carried  on  vary,  of  course,  with  circumstances.  The  man- 
agement of  the  modern  variety  of  social  and  particularly 
religious  organizations,  created  to  interest  or  inform  the 
public  in  social  or  economic  questions,  is  frequently  in  the 
hands  of  men  whose  chief  qualification  consists  of  the  ability 
to  make  effective  emotional  appeals  that  will  arouse  public 
interest  in  their  work — a  type  of  ability  which  is  not  al- 
ways accompanied  by  the  power  of  clear  analysis  or  im- 
partial judgment.  Such  a  situation  may  often  be  readily 
capitalized  by  the  clever  radical  "borer"  who,  because 
of  his  connection  with  some  so-called  "industrial"  or 
"economic"  bureau  or  school,  created  and  so  named  for 
the  particular  purpose  of  giving  prestige  to  such  radical 
activities,  is  able  to  insinuate  himself  into  the  organization 
in  the  guise  of  an  "economic"  or  other  "technical"  expert. 

Again  the  problem  of  raising  money  is  often  one  of  the 
most  important  and  pressing  which  has  to  be  faced  by  the 
type  of  organizations  under  discussion.  The  individual  or 
group  therefore,  which  can  devise  successful  ways  and 
means  to  tliis  end  may  hope  to  become  correspondingly 
influential  in  the  activities  which  such  money  supports. 
It  is  a  matter  of  record,  as  has  already  been  noted,  that  a 
$50,000  pledge  was  obtained  from  a  notoriously  radical 
source  to  finance  the  activities  of  the  Interchurch  Indus- 
trial Department.  It  is  also  a  matter  of  record  that  ad- 
vertisements have  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  radical 
and  "liberal"  publications  offering  to  furnish  financial 
plans  to  social  and  church  organizations.  Such  facts  in- 
dicate how  keenly  alive  radicalism  is  to  the  value  of  this 
method  of  making  its  influence  felt. 

The  method  of  controlling  the  agents  of  radicalism  and 
their  "boring"  activities  in  various  types  and  widely  scat- 
tered organizations  is  entirely  clear  from  the  casual  study 
of  the  lists  of  officials  of  such  organizations.    It  is  a  familiar 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       473 

method.  It  is  what  is  popularly  known  as  the  "community 
of  interests"  system,  operating  through  "interlocking  direc- 
torates." The  radical  directors  of  ultra-radical  central 
organizations  serve  as  directors  and  officers  with  less  radical 
and  even  conservative  directors  in  a  much  wider  group 
of  "liberal"  organizations,  while  the  most  intimate  of  their 
fellow  directors  in  such  organizations  in  turn  serve  as  direc- 
tors or  officers  in  a  still  wider  group  of  more  "merely  liberal" 
organizations.  Again  we  have  an  excellent  example  in  the 
Interchurch  Report  itself.  Mr.  Foster,  the  hero  of  the 
Report,  is  a  member  of  the  No.  i  Communist  governing 
organization,  in  constant  touch  with  Moscow.  As  member 
of  the  Federated  press  he  is  in  constant  touch  with  Mr. 
Blankenhom,  who  wrote  the  Interchurch  Report,  and  Mr. 
Bruere,  the  head  of  its  technical  assistants.  Blankenhorn 
and  Bruere  in  turn,  in  their  Bureau  of  Industrial  Research, 
are  in  touch  with  the  trade  unions,  social  organizations, 
college  socialist  societies,  and  the  like,  to  which  they  supply 
data  and  material.  Through  common  membership  in  the 
National  Committee  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union, 
Foster  is  in  active  touch  with  James  A.  Maurer,  who  fur- 
nished most  of  the  Interchurch  "rock-bottom"  affidavits, 
and  Maurer  in  turn  is  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  State 
Federation  of  Labor,  a  subordinate  organization  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor.  Through  the  same  organiza- 
tion Foster  is  in  touch  with  Baldwin  whose  assistants  are 
seeking  from  the  courts  a  new  interpretation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  and  of  assemblage, 
which  will  destroy  the  power  of  the  Government  to  protect 
itself  and  its  citizens  against  propaganda  for  the  overthrow 
of  our  government  by  force  and  violence. 

Through  its  control,  thus  secured  and  maintained  and 
directed,  of  an  ever  increasing  number  of  organizations, 
which  profess  to  represent,  and  are  accepted  by  the  general 
public  as  representing,  some  religious  or  broadly  social  work, 
radicalism  is  today  carrying  on  an  "under  cover"  propa- 
ganda campaign  which  is  as  far  reaching  as  it  is  generally 


474      HISTORY  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 

unsuspected.  Thus  radicalism  is  continually  presenting  to 
the  public  as  sound  bases  for  public  opinion  and  action  all 
manner  of  "social  programs"  which  as  a  matter  of  fact  are 
merely  clever  compositions  of  sentimental  plausibilities  and 
ideaHstic  sounding  sophistries  designed  to  confuse  the  real 
issues  involved  and  breed  distrust  of  those  who  are  honestly 
attempting  to  meet  and  solve  those  issues  on  a  workable 
basis.  Thus  it  is  continually  determining  the  selection  of 
lecturers  and  subjects  to  which  the  widest  variety  of  audi- 
ences in  all  parts  of  the  country  listen  without  the  least 
suspicion  that  they  are  actually  listening  to  organized  propa- 
ganda. Thus  it  controls  the  writing  and  distribution  of 
innumerable  articles,  bulletins,  pamphlets,  supposedly  ex- 
pert reports  and  allegedly  statistical  studies  on  the  widest 
variety  of  subjects  of  popular  interest,  often  presented  in 
the  most  impressive  scientific  guise,  but  actually  ingeniously 
contrived  to  misrepresent  the  real  facts,  to  confuse  the  true 
issues,  to  insinuate  distrust  in  our  institutions,  or  subtly  lead 
up  to  some  radical  conclusions. 

Moreover  it  is  a  recognized  fact — and  one  which  such 
propaganda  is  built  to  take  advantage  of — that  under 
ordinary  circumstances  correction  and  disproof  can  seldom 
hope  to  catch  up  with  sensationally  stated  and  cleverly 
propagated  misinformation. 

That  the  Interchurch  Report  is  typical  of  this  general 
radical  "  under-cover "  propaganda  with  which,  in  all 
manner  of  disguises,  the  country  is  today  being  broadcast, 
is  plain  from  the  comparison  of  arguments,  conclusions  and 
even  phraseology  already  made,  and  from  the  fact  that  it 
was  actually  prepared  by  the  representatives  of  the  same 
organizations  which  are  at  least  ultimately  responsible  for 
this  general  campaign.  But  the  Interchurch  Report  is 
more  than  merely  typical.  From  its  inception,  in  which 
the  radicals  had  such  a  prominent  part,  the  Interchurch 
Steel  Strike  Report  offered  the  possibilities  of  having  their 
"  undejc-cover  "  propaganda  underwritten  and  circulated  by 
what  promised  to  be  the  most  influential  religious  organiza- 


REPORT  ON  THE  STEEL  STRIKE       475 

tion  in  American  history.  The  "borers"  in  this  case  con- 
sisted not  merely  of  the  immediate  representatives  of  one 
particular  radical  group,  as  is  usual,  but  of  some  of  the 
ablest  representatives  of  the  most  important  interlocking 
radical  groups.  Their  success  was  such  that  they  had  the 
preparation  of  the  Report  substantially  in  their  own  hands. 
With  such  an  incentive  and  such  an  opportunity  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  these  men  should  have  made  the  Inter- 
church  Report  less  than  the  best  and  strongest  possible 
argtunent  of  its  kind. 

Moreover  the  Interchurch  Report  on  the  Steel  Strike 
deals  on  such  an  extensive  scale  with  a  subject  of  such 
recognized  public  importance ;  its  arguments  and  conclusions 
have  been  brought  so  sensationally  to  public  attention  and 
so  reaffirmed  not  only  by  those  who  are  responsible  for  this 
Report  but  by  the  widest  variety  of  radical  and  "liberal" 
leaders  and  groups,  that  it  cannot — as  does  the  bulk  of 
similar,  but  less  individually  conspicuous  propaganda — 
evade  a  reckoning  with  the  truth. 

The  primary  motive  of  the  present  analysis  is  the  hope 
that  such  a  critical  examination  as  is  here  presented,  of  the 
actual  merits  of  such  arguments  and  of  the  methods  by 
which  they  have  been  propagated,  in  the  case  of  this  most 
conspicuous  example,  may  make  it  easier  for  the  average 
American  to  recognize  and  judge  such  propaganda  in  what- 
ever guise  he  may  meet  it.  It  is  particularly  hoped  that 
such  exact  and  detailed  citations,  as  are  here  given,  of  the 
original  authorities  on  which  such  argimients  are  alleged  to 
be  based,  and  to  the  other  pertinent  evidence,  may  both 
offer  the  incentive,  and  make  it  easier,  for  those  who  may 
be  interested  in  modem  "liberalism"  to  investigate  fully 
for  themselves  the  actual  merits  of  the  most  prominent 
product  of  modern  "liberalism." 


*^  DAY  USE 
ifRiSTOflujFTO     642-1705 

INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS 
LIBRARY 

This  publication  is  due  on  the  LAST  DATE 
and  HOUR  stamped  below. 


LD  23-20m-9,'70                         „.  General  Library 
(N9594610 ) 47&— A-32,  2  &  3              ^"""'^"'^^'^'gg^'^*"''*'^ 

INSTITUre  OP 

INDUSTRIAL  RfUTIONt 

UBRASY 


and 
CLARIC 

50    M  24M 

Booksellers 

04E.55lhST. 
:   CAGO,LLIi. 


fTiO 


iK-^g^^r-^S^S^sK-'x 


